People come to the Southern Oregon Coast to retire. Certainly not ALL of the people who live on the coast are retirees, but definitely more of them over time. The Oregon Coast Visitors Association commissioned a study, and it found that 38% and more of the local income in Curry, Coos, and coastal Douglas counties came from Social Security and other government programs.
The flip side is that there is less income now coming from traditional employment in industries like timber and commercial fishing. The study updates numbers first collected 30 years ago, and updated several times since. We explore the findings and their implications with Marcus Hinz, the OCVA Executive Director, and economist Hans Radtke.