Drowning in government debt
Oregon comes in at number 10 on this list of the 10 states with the highest government debt per capita. The study pegs Oregon's debt at $2,960 a head.
That, of course, is nothing to us Portlandians. Counting pensions and bonds, our estimate of the City of Portland's debt is now at more than $11,000 per resident. Go by streetcar!
| Posted at 9:16 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (5)
Hmmm...the link gives a total state debt of $58,019,973 and a per capita debt of $2,960. That would mean the state population is about 19,600. Something seems amiss in their figures.
Posted by PMG | October 26, 2011 10:29 AM
Total state debt is way over $58 million. $58 billion, perhaps?
Posted by Jack Bog | October 26, 2011 10:47 AM
Oregon's population is about 3.8 million. If the per capita figure is correct, this would put the state's debt at about $11.25 billion. Of course, it's also possible that they did mean $58 billion instead of $58 million, in which case Oregon would be much higher up on the top 10 list.
Posted by MJ | October 26, 2011 11:01 AM
"The total of U.S. state debt, including pension liabilities, could surpass $4 trillion" "Total budget gap FY2011: $4,200,000"
I think they included current devt and unfunded pensions (which Mr Bog already did for Portland.)
At pop = 3.5M and $2960/capita = $10.36B
Considering they had to throw another $1.1B last biennium to benefits, I think that's probably a low number at $10B.
Posted by Steve | October 26, 2011 4:26 PM
Considering the article said: Using the higher pension gap number, State Budget Solutions said California is in the biggest financial hole -- with total debt of more than $612 billion. but the picture showed their debt as: $612,054,955
It is only missing three zeros.
So if Oregon is the same that puts the per capita number at about $15,268.
Posted by Michael | October 26, 2011 5:06 PM