Blog

President's Budget and UI Taxable Wages

The Wall Street Journal reports that the President’s budget (to be released next week) will include a provision that would increase the level of wages subject to the federal unemployment tax, as a way to “restock strained state unemployment-insurance trust funds.”  Currently, the taxable wage base is set at $7,000; the President would increase that […]

Union Membership in Washington State, 2010

In January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership, which shows that Washington remains the 4th most highly unionized state in the nation. In 2010, 19.4 percent of Washington workers were members of a union. This is down from the 20.2 percent reported for 2009. Nationally, 11.9 percent of workers […]

Thrive Washington suggests positive ideas to put state on sustainable budget path

Thrive Washington, a research and communications partnership between the Research Council and Washington Roundtable, has looked at budget reforms, contracting out, and health care policy. This series of white papers provides a good platform for responsible state budgeting in hard times. And, these proposals will accelerate the transition to better times. Sunday, the Herald of […]

Health Care and Employee Benefits Spending Charts

In her State of the State address yesterday (reported on by the Seattle Times here), Gov. Gregoire pointed to two areas of state spending that must be tackled, for the long-term health of the budget:  health care and pension spending.  The governor noted that health care costs have doubled over the past decade, while pension […]

Unemployment Insurance Burden

This table compares the unemployment tax burden in Washington with that in other states.