Gov. Inslee’s jobs plan, released last week, again highlights the state’s enduring problem: Too many people looking for work and not finding it. In my column, I lead with this:

Nearly 17 percent of the state’s workforce — one in six of us — is either unemployed or underemployed. So much for the recovery.

Nationally, it’s one in seven, about 15 percent.

That the U-6 measure of unemployment, which picks up people working part-time for economic reasons (they can’t get a full-time job), discouraged and marginally attached workers. It’s a higher and more realistic picture of today’s workplace. (For alternate measures of unemployment look here.)

As our legislature plays out its blue-red House-Senate drama, employment costs, mandates, and taxes take center stage. The Inslee plan appropriately looks at education, transportation and regulation. In the column, I suggest he also weigh in on ill-advised legislative proposals that will boost business costs and add to our employment problems.