Why Washington surpasses Oregon | In Focus
Published 11:00 am Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Do you know that Washington State’s population is near 8 million while Oregon’s is nearer to 4.3 million?
Did you know that the average salary in Washington is around $108,468, while Oregon’s average salary is around $70,234?
Why is this, especially since early settlers came to Oregon first?
The fascinating answers to these questions are gained from the “Geography by Geoff”: Why Washington Is So Much More Successful Than Oregon? Three reasons are geographic, attitudinal, and economic.
Geography: Early American settlers migrated to Oregon on the Oregon trail in the 1840s. and 1850s. They were journeying to the Willamette Valley south of Portland. This valley was a farmer’s Garden of Eden with its rich fertile alluvial soil and abundant rain. The soil was brought down the Columbia in gigantic glacial floods and dumped into the Willamette Valley from Idaho and Montana.
Hundreds of thousands of pioneers made the arduous trip to this agricultural paradise. Because of this agricultural Mecca, Oregon attained statehood in 1859. It took Washington until 1889 to become a state. Trees were also major resource for jobs in both states.
People settled in Washington because of two bodies of water: Puget Sound with its 3000-plus miles of coastline, and the Columbia River which cuts through the middle of the state. Washington has several deepwater ports on Puget Sound that can handle large ships, including Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia. Oregon, by contrast, has only Portland, which is a hundred miles inland from the Pacific Ocean with a very treacherous entry from the Pacific at the mouth of the Columbia. Puget Sound’s waters are calmer, and more easily accessible to the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Juan de Fucha.
Attitudinal: As mentioned above, settlers came to Oregon to farm or to log. Those who came to the Puget Sound came with a different attitude—to make money through business and trade. Those in Seattle took advantage of the Yukon gold strike in 1897. In what Geoff characterizes as one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history, Seattle became synonymous with the Yukon to supply miners with the required ton of equipment, food, and supplies to make their fortunes. 75% of those who travelled to the Yukon gold rush travelled to Seattle rather than through Portland.
Economic: Western Oregon attracted two major industries in the 20th century: Intel with its computer hardware production, and Nike with its garment manufacturing. Washington saw the building and damming of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. These dams produced lots of cheap electricity beginning in the 1930s encouraging industrialization.
Puget Sound’s calm waters enabled easy shipping to Asia as transportation improved over time. Bill Boeing, a timber magnate, decided to build airplanes in Seattle in 1916. Airplane production also created a highly skilled workforce which was more stable than logging. This caused increased immigration to Washington.
Since the infrastructure had already been created by the Yukon gold rush and Asian trade, Seattle’s economy literally took off. Those same dams along the Columbia also allowed for irrigation in eastern Washington that produces our famous Washington apples, other food staples, and our vineyards. Oregon’s drier eastern side did not have these advantages and has fewer people than Washington’s east side.
Microsoft, originally started in New Mexico, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and his partners. In contrast to Intel in Oregon, Microsoft developed software rather than hardware. Microsoft has made Puget Sound a chief Internet hub.
Jeff Bezos began Amazon in the 1990s, selling books, and later branching out to selling virtually everything— from A to Z. These successful businesses took advantage of the transportation hub in Puget Sound, shipping their products to the nation and the world via land, air, and sea.
Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon have caused enormous income and population growth, far outstripping Oregon’s success in computer hardware and clothing.
Washington, until recently, has not had a state income tax. Washington’s regressive tax system has benefited the wealthy rather than the middle and lower classes. Perhaps these three corporations were influenced by lower state taxes. Perhaps, not having a state income tax has drawn these tech giants to Puget Sound.
Oregon has one of the highest state personal income taxes in the nation, but no sales’ tax, while Washington has some of the nation’s highest sales and property taxes. This could also play a part in where entrepreneurs decided to build their businesses.
You might ask yourself why you live in Washington rather than in Oregon. Answering that question will likely overlap with the differences between how Washington has become more populated and financially successful than Oregon.
Geography, attitudes, and economics have all played major parts in why you live in Washington rather than in Oregon.
