For many, slide began a decade ago.

Byline: Eric dePlace For The Register-Guard

The Northwest's newspapers these days are dark with headlines of economic misfortune: unemployment is up, the stock market is down, mass layoffs loom, and the states can't make ends meet. But for a surprisingly large share of Northwesterners, today's sour economy actually started in the 1990s - a time when our region was regarded as an epicenter of opportunity and overnight wealth.

During the halcyon days of the boom, the region's residents mostly paid attention to a few one-dimensional economic indicators. Real personal income per capita for the Northwest states grew by 20 percent from 1990 to 2001. Real gross state product for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington shot up 63 percent. As anecdotes of overnight stock-market millionaires abounded, economic growth appeared self-evident. But like a giddy teenage driver with eyes glued to his rising speedometer, we failed to notice that we were heading in the wrong direction and running out of gas.

A truer gauge of economic progress would measure the fortunes of ordinary people.

Per capita personal income, for instance, masks big disparities. As it turns out, the highest-earning fifth of Northwesterners made a killing, bringing in 30 percent more income in 2001 than their counterparts of 1990, after adjusting for inflation. The lowest-earning fifth, on the other hand, actually lost ground during the same period.

In fact, for every new dollar earned by the middle class (the middle-earning fifth) from 1990 to 2001, the wealthy earned $13 more, and low-income households made a few pennies less.

Yes, the Northwest's middle class did see some gains. The region's median income - the income that half of all households exceed and half fall below - grew by $2,000 from 1990 to 2001, the most recent year for which data are available. But nationally, the median grew much faster, by $3,400.

Poverty rates tell a similar story. The Northwest has long enjoyed lower-than-average rates of poverty, compared to the rest of the nation; but by 2001 our leadership had all but evaporated. Since 1990, our region has added 300,000 people to the ranks of the poor (and Oregon added at least 100,000) while the rest of the nation, excluding the Northwest states, subtracted 1 million. Overall, the region's poverty rate rose from 9.7 percent in 1990 to 11.2 percent in 2001.

The steepest increases in Northwest poverty occurred in the early 1990s, but the subsequent economic "growth" failed to undo the damage. Meanwhile, outside of the Northwest, the national economy managed to slowly but steadily ratchet down the poverty rate.

By the same token, the Northwest's unemployment rates surpassed the national rates during the mid-1990s, precisely when the regional economy was said to sizzle. Though the Northwest was bedeviled by high unemployment in the 1970s and 1980s, we started the 1990s with a smaller share of our workforce jobless than the rest of the country. But then, despite rapid economic "growth," we fell behind. With annual rates topping 7 percent, Oregon and Washington now jostle for position as the worst state in the nation for job seekers.

Why is it that, in a region that was considered a hotspot of the national economy, middle- and lower-income Northwesterners fared worse than the U.S. average? The precise reasons are hard to pinpoint. The simple explanations offered in our polarized politics - "excessive regulation," says the right; "globalization," replies the left - are hard to reconcile with the subtleties of the data. But one overarching lesson seems paramount: we have been measuring our progress by the wrong yardsticks.

Gross domestic (or state) product - the most commonly reported metric of overall economic health - may once have been an effective barometer of economic security at all levels of society. But where a rising tide of prosperity once lifted all crafts, it now appears to favor yachts over rowboats.

By gauging our economic success on such crude measures, we failed to detect the more important "boom" story: increasing numbers of poor families and meager economic gains for the majority of Northwesterners. By choosing better barometers - and heeding what the measurements tell us - the Northwest can strive to make its next boom one that is broadly shared.

Eric de Place is a research associate at Northwest Environment Watch, a Seattle-based research and communication center, and lead author of "Falling Behind: Economic Security of Northwest Families Since 1990."