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2011 Media Coverage
Decade sees steep drop in companies with employee benefits
12.19.2011 | Puget Sound Business Journal | The percentage of Washington companies offering employee benefits has declined markedly in the last decade, a new report from the Economic Opportunity Institute shows.
Report: Working Women Falling Behind in WA
12.20.2011 | San Juan Islander | For women in the workforce in Washington, 2011 could be summarized as a year of treading water - or even sinking a bit. According to a new report, women's wages and benefits in the Evergreen State continue to lag behind those of men. Even in the same job and age range and with similar education, a woman's average monthly pay is 63 percent of what a man earns per month.
Report: Working Women Falling Behind in WA
12.19.2011 | Washington News Service | For women in the workforce in Washington, 2011 could be summarized as a year of treading water - or even sinking a bit. According to a new report, women's wages and benefits in the Evergreen State continue to lag behind those of men. Even in the same job and age range and with similar education, a woman's average monthly pay is 63 percent of what a man earns per month.
Wage Gap Between Women, Men Grows in Washington State
12.15.2011 | Publicola | Women in Washington State continue to earn dramatically less than men, a new report from the Economic Opportunity Institute finds—and the gap is only growing, as private-sector fields dominated by men rebound while the public sector, whose jobs are mostly held by women, continues to shrink.
Cuts nibble away at the quality of education
12.10.2011 | Everett Herald | As the Seattle-based Economic Opportunity Institute notes, "Washington's tax structure is currently unfairly skewed to favor the well-to-do. Rapid income growth and falling federal taxes further strengthen the case that the state's wealthiest families should pay more to finance high-priority public services."
Bull Semen, Private Jets, and Other Good Ways to Tax Washington's 1 Percent
12.01.2011 | Seattle Weekly | The popular political solution to the budget debacle is a temporary half-cent increase on sales tax. But Marilyn Watkins, policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute, has some ideas for a more progressive source of revenue.
Special session starts Monday
11.28.2011 | The Columbian | This month, the nonprofit Economic Opportunity Institute, which says it focuses on “building economic opportunity for the middle class,” released its own slate of $1 billion worth of tax breaks it would like to see eliminated and new taxes it would like to see enacted.
Reactions To Governor's Budget Proposal
11.22.2011 | KUOW: The Conversation | Marilyn Watkins is the policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute, a think tank in Seattle that promotes "long–term economic security and opportunity for Washington's middle–class workers and families."
Massive cuts postponed, protests continue
11.22.2011 | The Western Front | “It’s actually good news,” said Marilyn Watkins, policy director for the Economic Opportunity Institute. “It would be devastating to our economy as a whole if the deal they were talking about was executed.”
Report: State’s Women Hit Hardest by Great Recession
11.21.2011 | Publicola | The Economic Opportunity Institute has a new report showing that the Great Recession has disproportionately impacted women, as the weak economy has compounded inequities between men and women in wages, access to health insurance, paid leave, and retirement income.
Tax breaks versus budget cuts as special session approaches
11.21.2011 | San Juan Islander | Most of the budget gap, says Marilyn Watkins, policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute, could be paid for by repealing tax breaks such as the one the state provides to banks for profits they make on home mortgages. "There's absolutely no evidence that tax break has done any good for consumers in Washington or homeowners in Washington state."
Debating How To Fix The State Budget
11.14.2011 | KUOW: The Conversation | When the state Legislature convenes in special session after Thanksgiving, their job will be fixing a $2 billion budget shortfall. Marilyn Watkins, policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute, thinks they need to bring in more money.
Governor and Legislature must close tax loopholes to save vital programs
11.07.2011 | The Olympian | As we tackle this newest revenue shortfall, instead of telling 6,000 elderly and disabled people to buck up and take care of their own needs, thousands of poor people to endure their dental pain, thousands of schoolchildren to learn as best they can in larger and larger classes, and thousands of workers to apply for unemployment benefits, we should first look at repealing a long list of tax breaks that have been won by the powerful in Olympia.
State tax ideas pop up
10.30.2011 | The Olympian | The Economic Opportunity Institute offered other ideas worth $1.5 billion a year. Among them: repeal of the mortgage interest exemption for banks; reinstatement of a pop tax; repeal of a jet-fuels exemption; a surcharge of 10 percent on sales of cars, boats and planes valued at more than $50,000; a 5 percent state admissions tax that excludes youth and K-12 sports events; and repeal of the excise-tax exemption for motor-fuels.
There's no shortage of ideas for how to fix state's budget shortfall
10.28.2011 | Bellingham Herald | The Economic Opportunity Institute offered other ideas worth $1.5 billion a year. Among them: repeal of the mortgage interest exemption for banks; reinstatement of a pop tax; repeal of a jet-fuels exemption; a surcharge of 10 percent on sales of cars, boats and planes valued at more than $50,000; a 5 percent state admissions tax that excludes youth and K-12 sports events; and repeal of the excise-tax exemption for motor-fuels.
Social Security defenders speak up
10.24.2011 | Everett Herald | Among the speakers assembled at a forum at Everett C.C. last week was Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works. She noted Social Security has provided benefits reliably for 75 years. Before Social Security, the only choice was the poorhouse, she said. "There's been a campaign against Social Security since it was enacted," Altman added. "Instead of giving people assurances, the facts have been turned on their heads."
Hard times bite deep in Washington: who will step up as the state steps away?
10.04.2011 | Crosscut | Marilyn Watkins, at the Economic Opportunity Institute, noted that "business prospects have rebounded, corporate CEOs are getting megamillion-dollar salary boosts again, but that hasn’t trickled down." And in the coming years, the effects of poverty rates as serious as today's are likely to trickle up.
Exclusive: Seattle Law Advances Paid Sick Leave Campaign
09.29.2011 | Women's Media Center | Seattle recently became the third U.S. city to adopt paid sick days standards. With an 8 to 1 council vote on September 12, Seattle joins San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut in establishing this common-sense public health protection.
Mandatory sick leave? Who pays?
09.15.2011 | NW Asian Weekly | “Stay home when you’re sick,” states a public health message, which goes unheeded by four in 10 workers in fields of food safety and public health, including restaurant, grocery, and health care workers who are employed in an estimated 190,000 jobs that do not provide paid sick leave, according to a May 2011 report from the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI).
Seattle poised to adopt mandatory sick leave law
09.09.2011 | LA Times | The Economic Opportunity Institute, which backed the measure as part of the Seattle Healthy Workforce Coalition, estimates that about 190,000 workers in Seattle do not get paid sick days.
Seattle to pass amended mandatory sick leave bill
09.08.2011 | Seattle PI | The Economic Opportunity Institute estimates nearly 200,000 workers in Seattle now get no paid sick days. A poll released this week by sick-leave proponents showed that more than two-thirds of Seattleites favored the idea of requiring businesses to provide paid sick leave.
Poll: Seattle likes mandatory paid sick leave
09.07.2011 | Seattle PI | The Economic Opportunity Institute estimates nearly 200,000 workers in Seattle get no paid sick days. Under the plan sponsored by Councilman Nick Licata, workers would have to be on the job for six months before they could use accrued sick time.
Who's Getting Snotty About Sick Leave?
09.07.2011 | The Stranger | For restaurant workers, this means serving food while they also cough, sniffle, rub their noses... you get the picture. And according to the Economic Opportunity Institute, a research and policy center based in Seattle, one in four grocery-store employees—the people fondling your produce—report coming to work sick because they don't have paid sick days.
"Coddling" Washington's Millionaires?
08.18.2011 | San Juan Islander | In Washington state, higher taxes for the wealthy have been the subject of ballot initiatives and legislative debate, but the wealthy are still being "coddled" here, too, according to Marilyn Watkins, policy director with the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Proposal to require sick pay divides area business community
08.09.2011 | Seattle Times | The Economic Opportunity Institute, a local policy think tank advocating for the Seattle mandate, took national figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and applied them locally to estimate that 190,000 Seattle jobs — about 38 percent of jobs within the city — do not get paid sick leave.
Some mildly good news on jobs front
07.20.2011 | The Olympian | The national group Demos and the left-of-center Economic Opportunity Institute based in Seattle plans to issue a report Thursday that talks about lost opportunities for the middle class in this state. Among findings it will report in its briefing paper, “Under Attack: Washington’s Middle Class and the Job Crisis”.
Connecticut Becomes First State to Require Paid Sick Leave
07.07.2011 | Law.com | There are active campaigns for sick-leave ordinances in Denver and Seattle, said Alex Stone, a spokesman with the Seattle-based Economic Opportunity Institute.
Seattle's Mandatory Sick Pay Proposal
07.06.2011 | The Conversation on KUOW | The City Council's Housing, Human Service, Health, and Culture Committee is considering a bill that would mandate paid sick leave for all Seattle employees. Guests include Marilyn Watkins, policy director of the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Supporters cheer mandate for paid Seattle sick leave
07.06.2011 | seattlepi.com | City Councilmember Nick Licata proposed the ordinance last month, for the roughly 200,000 Seattle workers who get no paid sick leave, according to the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Plan would require Seattle firms to provide paid sick days
06.22.2011 | The Stranger | “This is the first time in the nation that proponents [of paid sick leave] sat down with small businesses and addressed their concerns prior to introducing legislation,” said Marilyn Watkins, policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute at a press conference at City Hall this morning.
Paid Sick Leave Compromise Gives Concessions to Small Businesses
06.22.2011 | Publicola | Asked about the reasoning behind requiring less sick leave for employees smaller businesses, Economic Opportunity Institute policy director Marilyn Watkins said, ‘”Obviously, you don’t get sick less often because you work in a smaller business [but] businesses that are a little larger have a greater ability to move people around.”
Plan would require Seattle firms to provide paid sick days
06.22.2011 | Seattle Times | Watkins and the Economic Opportunity Institute, a policy think tank, published a report in May supporting a mandatory sick-leave law for Seattle. The report shows that workers in the lowest 10th percentile of wages are much less likely to receive paid sick leave.
Plan would require Seattle firms to provide paid sick days
06.22.2011 | Seattle Times | Marilyn Watkins, an economist and spokeswoman for the Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce, estimates that about 190,000 workers do not receive paid sick leave in Seattle.
New sick leave idea for Seattle workers
06.22.2011 | Seattle PI | The Economic Opportunity Institute estimates nearly 200,000 workers in Seattle get no paid sick days.
Proposed city ordinance to mandate paid sick leave
06.22.2011 | UW Daily | If this ordinance is passed with a simple majority vote by the City Council and the approval of McGinn, even part-time student employees would be entitled to sick-day benefits, said Marilyn Watkins, policy director of the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Seattle workers could get more paid sick leave
06.21.2011 | Q13 Fox | "Our surveys show a great number of people without insurance are those working in health care and in restaurants," said Marilyn Watkins with the Economic Opportunity Institute.
New Seattle sick leave proposal to be floated
06.20.2011 | Seattle PI | Alex Stone, spokesman for the Economic Opportunity Institute, said the proposal to be discussed Tuesday and formally introduced by Licata on Wednesday will be unique to Seattle. No details were immediately available. “This is a completely new proposal” Stone said.
Finally, CT to Become First State With Paid Sick Leave Legislation; Now What About the Rest of the Country?
06.14.2011 | AlterNet | “The system isn’t working when little children are crying in the school nurse’s office begging them not to call their mom,” said coalition director Marilyn Watkins. “I’d love to have [the bill] in place before the next flu season and school year starts.”
Can a paid sick leave plan go national?
06.5.2011 | MSNBC | “We’re seeing momentum for paid sick days all around the country,” said Marilyn Watkins, policy director for the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Study: Paid Sick Leave in WA Serves Up Bennies Beyond Safer Food
05.11.2011 | Public News Service | Staying home from a job when ill isn't always possible for the four-in-10 Seattle workers who have no paid sick leave. A new study looks at the benefits of a proposal to require employers to provide paid sick leave for all workers, including those in food service, retail and health care.
Push on for paid sick leave for all workers in Seattle
05.11.2011 | KIRO Radio | "Right now about 40 percent of the workforce doesn't get any paid sick leave. And often times its people that earn lower wages, so when they're sick they have to make a really tough choice," said Marilyn Watkins with the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Plan would mandate paid sick leave in Seattle
05.10.2011 | Seattle Times | An estimated 190,000 workers in Seattle receive no paid sick days, said Marilyn Watkins, policy director for the Economic Opportunity Institute, a nonprofit public-policy organization that has joined with more than 50 groups under the umbrella organization, Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce, to support the proposal.
Study looks at lack of paid sick leave
05.09.2011 | Puget Sound Business Journal | The Economic Opportunity Institute has released a study examining the consequences of the fact that 4 in 10 workers in Seattle have no paid sick leave. That’s about 190,000 jobs, including around 30,000 in accommodation and food service, 20,000 in retail and 20,000 in health services.
Study: Mandatory sick leave would get ill workers out of restaurants
05.09.2011 | Seattle PI | The report by the Economic Opportunity Institute was released by the Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce. It says many of the 190,000 people working in Seattle without paid sick leave work in restaurants and grocery stories and expose people to diseases when they go to work when ill. A mandatory sick leave program would also increase employee retention, the report says.
Mandatory paid sick leave proposal snowballing in Seattle
05.06.2011 | King 5 News | Here in Seattle, 60% of workers have paid sick leave - 40% do not. It's a hot issue that's just starting to cook up in Seattle.
Madnatory sick pay?
05.03.2011 | KUOW: The Conversation | The Seattle City Council is considering a new law that would require employers to provide paid sick leave. Should all workers in Seattle get paid sick leave?
Paid sick leave proposal building steam among Seattle workers
04.27.2011 | King 5 News | Pushing for mandatory paid sick leave for all, the Economic Opportunity Institute says its an equity issue and a health issue. "A lot of the people who don't get paid sick leave have direct contact with food and the general public," said Marilyn Watkins from the institute.
Increasing social security benefits
04.26.2011 | Whidbey News-Times | “Keeping the Social Security Promise” will be the topic of Executive Director John R. Burbank’s speech on Sunday, May 15, from 2 to 4 p.m. in Hayes Hall conference room at the Whidbey Island Campus of Skagit Valley College in Oak Harbor.
Council Will Consider Citywide Mandatory Paid Sick Leave
04.25.2011 | Publicola | According to Marilyn Watkins of the Economic Opportunity Institute, one of several dozen liberal and progressive groups pushing the legislation, more than 40 percent of workers in Seattle—many of them in food, health care, and service jobs that put them in close contact with the public—have no paid sick leave. “There’s a huge public health issue and equity issue.”
New coalition seeks paid sick days
04.20.2011 | Real Change | Marilyn Watkins, policy director for the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle, said paid sick leave is a matter of public health. Employees who go to work sick spread disease to other workers. At restaurants, stores and other worksites open to the public, they can also make customers sick.
Law Enforcement Leaders Speak Out for Early Learning
04.15.2011 | Public News Service | Both the House and Senate budgets trim early learning programs, but they go about it differently. The House cuts or ends some individual programs, while the Senate proposes paying less per child for ECEAP, the state's preschool program for low-income families, and asking parents for a copayment. Gary Burris, a senior policy associate with the Economic Opportunity Institute, says any option comes with problems.
Equal Pay Day: WA Women Play Catch-up
04.11.2011 | Public News Service | A new report from the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) says Washington women working full-time earn 75 percent of what men earn, and it blames much of the disparity on workplace policies that put women at a disadvantage when juggling jobs and family responsibilities.
"State of Working WA" Finds WA in Quite a State
03.30.2011 | Public News Service | The American dream has faded away for many in Washington, a new study finds. The report, "The State of Working Washington," combines data from dozens of sources on jobs, wages and benefits. Its conclusion may be no surprise: for all but the wealthiest Washingtonians, times are tougher.
Report: Take WA State Workers Off the Chopping Block
03.07.2011 | Public News Service | Analyzing multiple studies on wages and benefits, the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) has found that most state workers are underpaid compared to their private-sector counterparts, by an average of about seven percent. Marilyn Watkins, EOI policy director and report co-author, says almost half of public employees in Washington have college degrees, but that is not reflected in their paychecks.
Will WA Offer Life Support to Basic Health Plan?
02.16.2011 | Washington News Service | Battling to keep social-service programs such as the Basic Health Plan alive in Washington, advocates are saying that corporations or groups that benefit from specific tax exemptions should either have to justify them or lose them. Safety-net programs regularly have to prove their worth to the state, says Marilyn Watkins, Policy Director for the Economic Opportunity Institute, so beneficiaries of tax breaks should do the same.
Time to live up to Reagan's Social Security deal
02.08.2011 | The Oregonian | Hardly any other entity in the world, public or private, can call itself a multitrillionaire. That's why John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle, calls Social Security "the best-funded program in the federal government."
State tax breaks for businesses need scrutiny now
02.02.2011 | Crosscut | Several groups have begun to target breaks that are the most problematic. The Economic Opportunity Institute has produced a list that includes interest earned on real estate loans, income earned by in-state freight haulers, agricultural producer’s income, and sales of customized software.
Finding Community: Facing the tension between individualism and the common good
01.01.2011 | Seattle Times | This straddling of individualism and the common good isn't unique to us. It's persisted throughout U.S. history, and within each of us, says Marilyn Watkins, policy director for the Economic Opportunity Institute. "We all believe that individuals should have control of their own destiny, but we've always known in a democracy that you are in it together, that our self-interest is connected to the interests of others."
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