Blog

Policy Brief: New Reforms to Workers' Compensation

Our wrap-up of the changes made this legislative session to the workers’ compensation system is now posted.  It follows several other reports on the subject and the need for reform: Employment Cost Drivers in Washington State, The Time Has Come to Fix Workers’ Compensation, and Mainstreaming Workers’ Compensation. In these reports, we have consistently called […]

WRC's 79th Annual Meeting

…was a great success last night. Thanks to all who attended and sponsored the event, the WRC board and executive committee, outgoing chair Anne Bryant and incoming chair Gary Strannigan. We're going into the 80th year with momentum.  

Microsoft & Boeing announce $50 million scholarship fund

Today, coincident with the governor’s signing higher education bills, Boeing and Microsoft pledge $25 million each to fund scholarships for students in high-demand fields. This is very good news, as the governor points out. …our colleges and universities must have the resources to educate and train the next generation of engineers, scientists and workers. Tuition […]

State Agency Reorganizations

Stateline has an article today about various efforts to reorganize state agencies, looking specifically at Kansas, Michigan, and Washington.   The section on Washington addresses the consolidation of certain back-office functions that passed as part of the budget this year: The proposal is expected to save the state $18 million and eliminate 95 full-time employees. Stan […]

No joy in today's employment report

As foreshadowed earlier in the week, today’s job report confirms that the American economy remains stagnant. From the statement by BLS Commssioner Keith Hall: In May, nonfarm payroll employment changed little (+54,000), following increases that averaged 220,000 in the prior 3 months. The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged, at 9.1 percent, in May.  Employment in […]

Strassel on the Budget

The state legislature has finished work on the 2011-13 budget, but the federal government is still in budget mode.  In her column this week, Kimberley Strassel (our annual dinner speaker this year) asks who is winning the budget war:  By refusing to blink, Republicans keep forcing Democrats to acknowledge a very simple political reality: Voters […]

Preliminary June Economic Forecast

Economic and Revenue Forecast Council has posted the preliminary June economic forecast (available here). Under the new forecast, growth rates for Washington employment and personal income are a bit lower than under the forecast ERFC adopted in March, while the new forecast for the unemployment rate is correpondingly higher than the March forecast (see table […]

The 2011-13 Budget Deal

The 2011-13 budget deal announced today includes NGFS+ expenditures of $32.203 billion.  That's $237.1 million less than in the House-passed budget, and $77.0 million more than the Senate-passed budget. According to the budget documents, the proposal includes $4.1 billion in spending reductions, $459 million in transfers to the general fund, $57 million in budget driven […]

Workers' compensation agreement reached

The major policy obstacle to ending the special sessions was lifted Sunday when negotiators reached agreement on workers’ compensation reform. It does less than business wanted, arguable much less, and goes further than union leaders deem acceptable. So, by the common standard that a good compromise is one that leaves all parties at least partially […]

Washington Fares Poorly in New Business Tax Rankings

According to calculations by Ernst & Young LLP, the state and local tax burden faced by businesses siting new facilities or expanding existing facilities in Washington ranks among the highest in the nation. Our Policy Brief on the report is available here. The Ernst & Young report itself is available here.