New policy brief: Long-Term Care and Paid Family and Medical Leave: A Tale of Two Payroll Taxes
The Legislature has enacted two major payroll taxes in the last two years. Payroll taxes fund both a new long-term care insurance program that was enacted this year (the first in the nation) and the paid family and medical leave program that was adopted in 2017. The long-term care insurance premiums will be 0.58 percent […]
July 12 , 2019 - Emily Makings
CBO on the tradeoffs from increasing the minimum wage
Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a study on the impacts of increasing the federal minimum wage to $10, $12, or $15 per hour by 2025. The headline findings are that increasing the federal minimum to $15 would increase wages for 17 million workers, cause 1.3 million workers to lose their jobs, […]
July 01 , 2019 - Emily Makings
Washington’s average wage increased to $65,301 last year, affecting workers’ comp, UI, and paid family leave
Last month the Employment Security Department (ESD) announced that Washington’s average annual wage was $65,301 in 2018. That’s an increase of 5.5 percent over 2017. (The average weekly wage was $1,255 in 2018.) Several employment-related taxes and benefits are linked to the state average wage. Consequently, ESD also announced that for 2020, employers will pay […]
June 21 , 2019 - Emily Makings
L&I’s cost-benefit analysis of its proposed overtime rule relies on the estimated benefits of extending paid sick leave coverage
As part of its proposed overtime rule earlier this month, the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) released a preliminary cost-benefit analysis and a preliminary small business economic impact statement. As proposed, the rule would increase the state salary threshold for the executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) exemption from the minimum wage act to 2.5 […]
June 05 , 2019 - Emily Makings
L&I proposes changing overtime salary threshold to 2.5 times the minimum wage
The Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) has formally proposed tying the salary threshold that helps determine overtime eligibility for executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) workers and outside salespeople to the minimum wage. (This comes after two previous pre-draft versions were released last year.) Currently, workers must be paid overtime if they work more than […]
April 17 , 2019 - Emily Makings
Labor costs, and other notes from the agricultural census
Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the 2017 Census of Agriculture, which is done every five years. Agricultural commodity sales in the U.S. in 2017 totaled $388.5 billion, a decrease of 1.6 percent since 2012. Washington’s commodity sales totaled $9.6 billion, an increase of 5.6 percent over 2012. Washington had the nation’s 14th […]
March 06 , 2019 - Emily Makings
The Fed on the urban-rural divide
The February 2019 Monetary Policy Report from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System includes a section on differences in employment in rural and urban areas nationally (pages 10-12). It notes that the national employment-to-population (EPOP) ratio (the share of the population that is employed) “has returned to about its level before the […]
February 07 , 2019 - Emily Makings
Washington continues to have the third-highest private-sector and ninth-highest public-sector union membership rates in the country
In 2018, the union membership rate was 10.5 percent nationally and 19.8 percent in Washington, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Washington had the nation’s third-highest union membership rate. Washington also had the nation’s third-highest private-sector union membership rate, at 12.9 percent. Washington’s public-sector union membership rate was 51.9 percent, the ninth-highest. (This breakout […]
January 28 , 2019 - Emily Makings
Scheduling bill introduced in the House that would be more restrictive than Seattle’s ordinance
Since July 1, 2017, certain employers in Seattle have had to comply with the city’s scheduling ordinance. A new bill has been introduced in the Legislature that would apply similar rules statewide for food services, hospitality, and retail establishments. It would reach more establishments (by size and industry) than the Seattle ordinance. Under HB 1491, […]
November 21 , 2018 - Emily Makings
New version of overtime rule narrows the proposed salary threshold range
The Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) has been working on new overtime rules that would increase the salary threshold that helps determine whether executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) employees are exempt from overtime requirements. In October, L&I released a pre-draft proposal that would have increased the threshold to 1.5 – 3 times the state minimum […]