Emily Makings

Public policy implications of California Rule for pensions

At the Volokh Conspiracy, a legal blog now housed at the Washington Post, Sasha Volokh has been writing about the California Rule and public pensions. Volokh’s brief description of the rule is: . . . in California (and some other states), the courts give constitutional protection not only to the amount of public employees’ pensions […]

Sports and local funds

Many of us in the Northwest have sports on the mind today, understandably. Given that, I found a couple of local articles interesting and timely: In a Seattle Times post, Jonathan Martin writes about the potential costs of the Super Bowl parade through downtown Seattle: The Seahawks’ city-issued parade permit includes standard costs for traffic […]

The percentage of the eligible population enrolled in Washington's exchange is 17.4 percent

Yesterday Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post interviewed the Washington Healthplanfinder CEO, Richard Onizuka. She writes: Washington, alongside Vermont, leads the nation in percentage of eligible population enrolled in its exchange. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 33.1 percent of Washingtonians eligible to sign up for coverage through the exchange have gone ahead and done […]

New Brief: Sector Distribution of Washington's Minimum Wage Jobs

Last week we released a policy brief on the county distribution of Washington’s minimum wage jobs. Today we have a follow-up to that report: Sector Distribution of Washington’s Minimum Wage Jobs. The accommodation and food services, retail trade and agricultural sectors would be most affected by any increase in the minimum wage.

New Brief: County Distribution of Washington's Minimum Wage Jobs

In 2012, there were 68,567 full time equivalent jobs at the minimum wage in Washington. In a new policy brief, we take a look at the distribution of those jobs across the state. Below is a chart from the report, showing the number of minimum wage jobs in each county:

50 percent of new enrollments in the Washington exchange are newly eligible for Medicaid under the expansion

Today the Washington Health Benefit Exchange released enrollment numbers through Jan. 23. (Last week the exchange released its December enrollment report, skipping its regular weekly update. The week before it had released data through Jan. 9.) The total number of new enrollments through the exchange is now 323,762. Of that, 86,031 are in qualified (private) […]

"Student-athletes" and workers' comp

Football players at Northwestern University have filed a petition to unionize. According to ESPN, the approval process could take years. Here’s the part of the story that interested me the most: Northwestern is expected to oppose the action on the grounds athletes are not employees, and the NCAA, the trade association representing the athletic interests […]

2013 union membership in Washington

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its 2013 union membership report on Friday. The total union membership rate nationally was 11.3 percent (no change since 2012). The public-sector union membership rate was 35.3 percent and the private-sector rate was 6.7 percent. Washington’s total union membership rate was 18.9 percent (4th highest in the country). Additionally, […]

Through December, 77 percent of Washington exchange enrollees qualified for tax credit

The December enrollment report from the Washington Healthplanfinder was released today. It includes data from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, and is a follow-up to the November report. As readers know, last week the exchange released enrollment numbers through Jan. 9. Although the numbers in today’s report are dated, the report includes some extra information […]

Defined benefit pensions are great for employees — until they aren't

The 2013 Employee Benefits Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that of all private sector employees, 19 percent have access to a defined benefit pension and 59 percent have access to a defined contribution retirement plan. Conversely, of all state and local government workers, 83 percent have access to a defined benefit pension, […]