Blog

The false hope of rent control

Last week Seattle City Councilmembers Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata held an affordable housing town hall. From the news reports of the meeting, it sounds like rent control was the main agenda item. As I’ve written before, this is a bad idea. Still, it seems like this may be the new hot topic in Seattle, […]

Jack Ohman cartoon on William Shatner's quest for Seattle's water

It’s posted here, at the Sacramento Bee.

Follow-up on minimum wage for actors in L.A.

The New York Times reports that the actors union, Actors’ Equity, will force at least some small theaters L.A. to begin to pay minimum wages to actors. (I blogged yesterday about desire of many local union members to keep actors in small theaters exempt from the minimum wage.)  The national union representing stage actors has […]

Actors fight their union over minimum wage in L.A.

An interesting in the Monday New York Times describes a fight going on in Los Angeles  concerning the application of the minimum wage to actors working in very small theaters: The willingness of Los Angeles actors to perform for a pittance, hoping to hone their craft and, maybe, to catch the eye of an agent […]

Expanding opportunity through free trade

Former Gov. Chris Gregoire and former governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick had an op-ed in the Seattle Times on April 13 on the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP is a free trade agreement being negotiated by the U.S. and 11 other countries. On Thursday, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee agreed on a compromise […]

In Focus this week: Ports agreement, Expedia to Seattle, state finances report

Renovations for Seattle's PacMed Center costlier than anticipated

Interesting story from the Seattle Times on the saga of the PacMed Center in Seattle. (It’s the lovely and a bit imposing building that sits atop the hill just south of I-90 and east of I-5.) It fell on hard times after Amazon left in 2011, and in 2013 the state decided to lease it […]

In Focus this week: Employment, franchisees, and WRC annual dinner

Washington’s minimum wage and teenage unemployment: updated charts

In February 2014 we published a policy brief on Washington’s minimum wage and teenage unemployment. In that brief we noted that every year since voters approved Initiative 688, which increased the state minimum wage in two steps and indexed it to inflation, Washington’s unemployment rate for teenagers had exceeded the national rate. This continued to […]

In Focus this week: Employment and tax collections are up; new workers' comp rules?; measuring income inequality