The Portland Oregonian

Richard Nystrom was in the Air Force serving in the Korean War when an Army dentist put temporary fillings in two teeth. The work was faulty, and the teeth eventually rotted under the fillings...Forty years later, Nystrom needed the dental work redone. But it's taken him a decade of appeals just to get an exam. Today, he's missing 17 teeth and is too self-conscious to smile. He chews with two molars. And living on $1,200 a month, the… more

To hear Jacob Hacker talk, U.S. workers are increasingly being asked to become actuaries for their own economic doom.

Pension plans are evaporating. Health-insurance costs are climbing. More than ever, incomes rise and fall from year to year.

The American middle class feels more on the edge of financial ruin than any time since World War II.

Why? That's the subject of Hacker's new book, "The Great Risk Shift" (Oxford University Press, $26).

The Yale University political science professor and native… more

Health care costs clobbered Peggy Tate and sent her to economic purgatory after her husband died of cancer five years ago.

The 51-year-old Scappoose woman took out a second mortgage to pay $30,000 in costs not covered by her husband's insurance. She also has monthly payments for diabetes medicine, her son's medical needs, state-subsidized health insurance and more than $10,000 of medical debt on credit cards. Altogether, medical bills eat about 40 percent of the $2,500 a month she earns running… more

Few cities in North America are as widely feted as Portland. For many, Portland represents the epitome of "smart" urbanism, a paragon that puts other, less-brainy places to shame.

Pilgrims travel once or twice a month from as far as California and Canada to study Portland's transit system, economic development and land-use strategies. Lots of educated people, trees, clean air and good buzz help Portland get on all the right lists--from "most livable," "most fit," "healthiest," "most competitive," "most… more

Many Oregonians face a personal savings crisis that society cannot afford to ignore. For example, nearly half of households headed by adults 55 or older in our state lack such retirement assets as pensions and annuities. Furthermore, among low-income households in Oregon headed by an adult older than 55, nearly three out of five households (60 percent) are without retirement assets.

One new idea to address this savings crisis in Oregon that should be given serious consideration by Oregon's congressional… more

The United States usually seems to be sparring with Japan over trade, but the trade battle that most affects lumber mills in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and elsewhere … more