When people have meaningful job options and stable income, they gain:

• Freedom to speak honestly without fear of losing their livelihood

• Freedom to choose work aligned with their values

• Freedom to take risks, start businesses, and build something of their own

• Freedom to spend time in their communities instead of constantly worrying about survival

Economic stability is also deeply connected to housing stability. When people have access to work and opportunity, fewer fall into crisis, and more can remain housed when life becomes difficult.

Local businesses are also more likely to offer real second chances. Large corporations often rely on rigid hiring systems that screen people out based on gaps, instability, or past hardship. Community-rooted employers are far more likely to see the whole person and create pathways back to dignity and stability.

A strong local economy doesn’t just create jobs, it creates on-ramps back into community life.

Portland’s identity, our theaters, art, music, markets, food carts, vintage shops, freelancers, and creative workers, doesn’t exist separately from the economy. It is sustained by it.

Our cultural ecosystem, including artists and musicians who began here and continue to give back to the city, relies on a foundation of small businesses, local venues, and community spaces. The creative and gig economy only survives when the underlying local economy is healthy.

When small businesses disappear, we don’t just lose storefronts. We lose:

• Cultural institutions

• Creative opportunities

• Neighborhood character

• Third places where community forms

• The sense that Portland is a place where people can build meaningful lives

If we want to preserve what people love about this city, we must intentionally support the ecosystem that sustains it.

There’s another piece of this conversation we rarely acknowledge.

Civic engagement, volunteering, organizing, advocacy, showing up to meetings, participating in democracy, all of this requires time, energy, and financial stability.

Right now, too many people are stuck in survival mode:

• Working multiple jobs

• Facing housing insecurity

• Navigating broken systems

• Responding to constant crises

When people are financially stretched and exhausted, their ability to participate meaningfully in civic life shrinks. Their attention goes to urgent needs, not long-term change.

Over time, this creates a dangerous imbalance:

• Those with stability have disproportionate influence

• Those most impacted by policy often have the least capacity to engage

• Public processes become dominated by insiders and gatekeepers

A healthy democracy requires a population that actually has the capacity to participate.

That’s why economic resilience is not separate from civic health.
It is the foundation of it.

When people are economically secure:

• They can attend meetings

• They can advocate for change

• They can organize around issues they care about

• They can hold institutions accountable

• They can invest time in building better systems

Stability strengthens democracy. Instability weakens it.

We’ve seen what happens when external funding becomes unreliable. Programs shrink, services weaken, institutions become vulnerable. But we’ve also seen the opposite. When local communities step up to support things they value, like local public media, arts organizations, or community initiatives, those institutions become stronger because they are rooted in local investment.

If people are constantly under financial strain, they cannot sustain the institutions they care about.

You cannot build strong civic infrastructure on top of widespread economic insecurity.

That’s why local economic strength matters. It allows communities to:

• Sustain cultural institutions

• Support local media

• Fund neighborhood initiatives

• Invest in mutual aid

• Maintain public spaces

• Build long-term stability