Blog

Seattle Tops Nation in Home Price Increases

Barron’s reported yesterday that Seattle currently leads the nation in home price increases. According to the most recent S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, Seattle, Portland, and Las Vegas reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities. In July, Seattle led the way with a 13.5% year-over-year price increase, followed by Portland with a 7.6% increase, and […]

New Special Report on Manufacturing Jobs (Part I)

We’re out today with Part One of a series of special reports on manufacturing jobs in Washington state. “Rebalancing Priorities: The Case for Manufacturing Jobs, Part I” covers the role of manufacturing in Washington’s economy, and discusses Gov. Jay Inslee’s recent veto of a tax reduction for state manufacturing. Our series on manufacturing will focus […]

Red tape, delays contribute to the cost of housing

In a couple of stories yesterday, the Seattle Times writes about a proposal to tax nonresident buyers of Seattle real estate as a way to address the high price of Seattle housing. The Times reports that City Attorney Pete Holmes said such a tax would be illegal. Meanwhile, over the past month, the Sightline Institute has […]

Our Seattle Times op-ed on manufacturing jobs & state tax policy

We have an op-ed in today’s Seattle Times on Gov. Inslee’s recent veto of a reduced Business & Occupation (B&O) tax rate for manufacturing companies in Washington state. We argue that manufacturing jobs are a crucial component of providing workers with good-paying middle-class jobs, and that tax incentives will encourage companies to come here, stay […]

The state average wage increased in 2016, which will affect some state programs with benefits tied to it

According to the Employment Security Department, the average annual wage in the state increased to $58,957 in 2016. (The 4.8 percent increase over 2015 is apparently the largest percentage increase since 2007.) The 2016 average weekly wage was $1,133. This means that the minimum weekly unemployment benefit for new unemployment insurance claims will increase to […]

Novel research adds to our understanding of Seattle’s minimum wage

The UW team that is studying the impacts of Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance released a study yesterday that finds that the increase to $13 last year (for some large employers) resulted in reduced hours for low-wage workers, which had the net effect of lowering their earnings by $125 a month on average. This study is […]

Study finds minimal impacts from Seattle minimum wage law, but the jury’s still out

A new study from Michael Reich, Sylvia Allegretto, and Anna Godoey of the University of California, Berkeley looks at the effects of Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance. The headline finding is that, as the Seattle Times puts it, “Seattle’s minimum-wage law has led to higher pay for restaurant workers without affecting the overall number of jobs […]

Robots vs. Middle-class jobs

A recent blog post by James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), “Is automation really the worst enemy of the US middle class?,” adds perspective to the ongoing debate over how much impact robots and automation have on jobs: Automation is kind of​ like alcohol, which, ​as Homer Simpson puts it, is “t​he cause of, and […]

Seattle is a taxing place

The Seattle City Council’s Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods, and Finance Committee will meet tomorrow to possibly vote on the proposed pop tax (technically “a tax on engaging in the business of distributing sweetened beverages”) and to discuss an income tax for the city. (See today’s post from Opportunity Washington on the income tax idea.) Emily Parkhurst of the Puget […]

Video of our Annual Dinner speaker

If you missed our Annual Dinner in Bellevue May 23, you can watch it on TVW here. Our guest speaker, Ian Toner, gave a fascinating talk about the massive changes happening in our political system, the job market and workforce, and the economy — both here and across the world.