Democrats Are Killing Portland, Oregon
Americans: These last four years I have researched and written many, many articles about different aspects of the decline of the Portland Metro Area. Too many to count. In 2023 I wrote “Portland: Death Of A City” which focused on the huge increase in crime caused by the “defund police” insanity. A year ago this month I wrote “Portland Is Dying,” which focused on the declining economy and tax base. This spring will see a wave of retail store closures throughout Oregon as longtime retailers announce they can no longer do business in the state. Thanks to one of my subscribers who spent decades residing in a Portland suburb, I was alerted to the following article. As a retired bankruptcy attorney in Oregon, I know high rates of filings in a given area is a symptom of a dying local economy. Diane
Layoffs Pile Up As Portland Biz Bankruptcies Soar To 12-Year High
By Emily Nguyen
Oregon’s small-business scene just lived through its roughest year in more than a decade, and Portland-area operators are feeling it on every block. A spike in bankruptcies in 2025 hit storefronts, suppliers and nonprofits alike, squeezing already thin margins for mom-and-pop shops. Local leaders say the wave has left key business districts and service providers exposed to a string of knock-on losses.
Roughly 250 Oregon businesses filed for bankruptcy protection in 2025, the most since 2013,^ and the state’s business filing rate climbed nearly four times faster than the national pace, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. The paper’s breakdown shows the jump spread across hospitality,* retail, small manufacturers and contractors, not just one troubled niche. That total marks a sharp turn from the quieter post-pandemic stretch that followed federal aid and loan forbearance programs.
Nationwide Wave Of Commercial Filings
The local pain is part of a national trend. Epiq AACER reported 956 commercial Chapter 11 filings in January 2026, a 76 percent jump from January 2025, along with big increases in small-business Subchapter V elections. In that release, American Bankruptcy Institute executive director Amy Quackenboss described the surge as the product of a “convergence of economic stressors,” including higher interest rates and rising costs. That national wave helps explain why pressure at the state level is now turning into more reorganizations and closures in Oregon.
Big-Name Layoffs Rip Through Local Economy
At the same time, layoffs at some of the region’s biggest employers have been rattling the smaller firms that feed off their payrolls. OPB reported that Intel revised its layoff notices in July 2025 to about 2,392 positions at its Hillsboro and Aloha campuses. The university health system also trimmed hundreds of administrative jobs, as documented by OPB. Those higher wage cuts shrink demand for everything from office food service to local maintenance contractors, and even modest ripples can be enough to tip a marginal business into insolvency. Nike’s layoffs at its Beaverton campus the previous year also took hundreds of customer households and suppliers out of the local economy, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
Small Shops And Nonprofits Take The Hit
The fallout on the ground has been blunt: unpaid invoices, supply chains knocked off course and a growing number of darkened windows. A fundraising-platform bankruptcy in December left 53 Oregon nonprofits collectively owed about $766,000, according to KPTV, a reminder of how a single failure can ripple through community organizations. Public court trackers show dozens of business cases filed in Oregon in 2025. A filings database listed 64 business bankruptcy cases for the state last year, a count that highlights how news outlets and court databases sometimes classify and tally filings differently (BKAlerts).
Analysts warn the trend could persist as long as interest rates stay elevated and lenders keep tight credit terms. The same Epiq data referenced earlier, and the ABI executive quoted in that release, indicate that many companies are using bankruptcy primarily as a reorganization tool instead of an immediate liquidation. Even so, community groups and local lenders are preparing for more financial stress in the months ahead.
Follow me on X Diane L. Gruber
How Much More ‘Progress’ Can Portland Endure?
Subscribers: I lived first in Portland & then in a suburb, West Linn, the majority of my adult life, before being chased out by the Democrat mob in 2020. It hurt to give up our dream home; but, in hindsight, it was a great decision as both our burb & Portland have gone way downhill since then. The articl…
^During the Obama Rescission.
*Tourism as down by 18% in 2025.
The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited. Follow me on X @DianeLGruber.
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