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Pew on Public Pensions

This week the Pew Center on the States put out a report on state pensions and retiree health care costs.  Pew finds that the gap between the promises states made for employees’ retirement benefits and the money they set aside to pay for them grew to at least $1.26 trillion in fiscal year 2009, resulting […]

Barone on the "death of the 'defined benefit'"

Last week, we published a brief on reforming public pensions. It’s timely, then, to link to Michael Barone’s column on the last days of the defined benefit pension. This sounds right: Defined benefit policies assume a static society. But we live in a dynamic society, and defined benefit policies cannot keep up with constant change. […]

New Brief: Reforming Public Pensions

In Reforming Public Pensions, we look at the current state of Washington’s public pension system and the methods of calculating unfunded liabilities in these plans.  The good news is that Washington is in much better shape than most other states.  The bad news is that all states are probably understating their unfunded liabilities by assuming […]

Moderate Democrats get workers' compensation reform bill moving again

Yesterday’s move by moderate Democrats in the House to amend the bipartisan workers’ compensation reform bill passed by the Senate has revived prospects for legislative success in the waning days of the legislative session. This is an issue the Research Council has followed closely for a long time. Most recently, we published The Time Has […]

The case for workers' comp reform

In my column this morning, I review the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 50-state study of employment costs. Washington ranks in the third tier of states, those with poor employment policies and high costs. (Emily notes here that the chamber’s data are a couple of years old. We’d look worse now.) Jason Hagey at Olympia Business […]

New Thrive Washington paper on employment cost drivers published today

The latest in the series of white papers published by the Washington Research Council and Washington Roundtable examines workers’ compensation reform and unemployment insurance. In particular, the report urges lawmakers to act this session to fix the state’s broken workers’ comp system. Here’s the link to Employment Cost Drivers in Washington State: The Case for […]

Outdated Data in U.S. Chamber Employment Policy Study

AWB’s Olympia Business Watch notes that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has released a study on state employment policies and job growth.  In considering the states’ employment policies, the Chamber looked at employment relationships/costs of separation, minimum wage and living wage laws, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation, wage and hour policies, collective bargaining, and litigation/enforcement […]

Washington's Union Membership Rates

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics sent out a press release on union membership in Washington in 2010.  BLS notes, “Since 1990, Washington has had union membership rates above the U.S. average.” In fact, in 2010, Washington’s union membership as a percent of total employment was the fourth highest in the country, behind […]

Comparing Savings from Governor's New Workers' Comp Proposal to ESB 5566

Unfortunately, after the good news earlier this week about how much money ESB 5566 (passed by the Senate, but so far stalled in the House) would save the workers’ compensation system, the governor decided to put forward a different set of reform proposals that do not include the full option for voluntary settlement agreements.  (For […]

Big Savings From Workers' Comp Reform

As we have reported numerous times, including in a recent policy brief, the Washington workers’ compensation system must be reformed.  At the beginning of March, the Senate passed a bill (ESB 5566) that would do just that. Yesterday the fiscal note for the bill was released, and it confirms what we already knew: the provisions […]