Economic Opportunity Institute

Press Coverage | 2008

Gov's Budget: Spending Cuts, No New Taxes

12.19.2008 | Public News Service | Even Governor Chris Gregoire says she "hates" the lean state budget she's proposing for the next two years - but she laid it out on Thursday, nonetheless. It trims spending on a wide variety of programs, including health care for 46,000 poor people. There will be less money for schools, from kindergarten through college; less Medicaid money for low-income nursing home residents; and 13 state parks will be closed. | Read

Minimum-wage attack on Rossi misleading

10.24.2008 | Seattle Times | Would Republican Dino Rossi really lower the state's minimum wage by $1.50 an hour if elected governor? That's the claim in an aggressive spate of ads from Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire's campaign. But the ads distort Rossi's comments. | Read

The Money Squeeze: National troubles hit home

09.27.2008 | Seattle PI | The financial storm of the past two weeks blew the curtains away from the Seattle economy, exposing a tougher future for consumers of a tightening job market, even tighter banks and a potential recession. | Read

Earnings gap widening between men, women in Washington state

09.21.2008 | The Bellingham Herald | Trying to figure out what's going on in today's economy is more challenging than ever, but a new study seems to put a fresh look on some of the numbers. | Read

On our own and getting by

09.19.2008 | The Columbian | Every day I meet women who are on their own, holding down jobs, managing families, paying the bills and trying to keep their cars running. | Read

Tri-City jobless rate down, but growth slowing

09.17.2008 | Tri-City Herald | Job growth in the Tri-Cities is slowing. In August, the Tri-Cities lost about 300 nonfarm jobs, the State Employment Security Department reported Tuesday. But from August 2007 to August 2008, the local economy added 2,600 jobs, an increase of 2.84 percent. The gains were in construction, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality and government. | Read

Washington state jobless rate hits 6%, highest in four years

09.17.2008 | Seattle Times | As economic thunderstorms lash Wall Street and soak most of the rest of the country, Seattle and Washington state have managed to stay fairly dry. But beware: The skies are darkening quickly. | Read

One step forward and one step back' -- County jobless rate rises

09.16.2008 | Yakima Herald | Yakima County's employment situation is showing mixed signals these days. | Read

Unemployment rises in Whatcom County; state hits 6 percent

09.16.2008 | Bellingham Herald | Locally the unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, was 5.6 percent in August, up from 5.5 percent in July, according to the Washington State Employment Security Department. It's the highest rate since February 2005, when it was at 6 percent. | Read

State's jobless rate 6%, a 4-year high

09.16.2008 | Seattle P-I | Washington's unemployment rate last month reached its highest level in nearly four years, and the number of people looking for jobs is only expected to grow. | Read

New Report: WA Works Harder, Makes Less, Spends More

09.15.2008 | Public News Service | Many Washington families haven't had enough recovery time since the last recession to rally, or even to brace for another downturn. That's one finding from a new "State of Working Washington" report, whose research compares today with other boom-and-bust cycles in the economy. | Read

Brown challenges 'supermajority' rule for taxes

08.24.2008 | Spokane Spokesman-Review | Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown is doing something that would make many a politician squirm: going to court to make it easier to raise taxes. A 15-year-old law declaring that a tax increase requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature is unconstitutional, she argues. Her fast-track lawsuit will be heard by the state Supreme Court on Sept. 9. | Read

Progressive think tank proposes high incomes tax

07.10.2008 | Tri-City Herald | The progressive Economic Opportunity Institute is proposing a mish-mash of tax increases and cuts that it believes would help plug Washington’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit while passing muster with voters. | Read

State’s paid family leave so far an empty promise

06.19.2008 | The News Tribune | On paper, Washington is the second state in the nation to pass paid family leave. On paper. In reality, Washington’s paid family leave is but a shell of a program. State lawmakers have done little of the heavy lifting needed to ensure that new parents can collect benefits beginning next year. | Read

Plan to open up CalPERS reflects worry about inadequate saving for retirement

04.25.2008 | Sacramento Bee | Investing for retirement is the financial equivalent of eating your vegetables: It's good for you, but sometimes downright distasteful. Now a proposal making its way through the California Legislature has people talking about whether the state can make putting aside retirement money more palatable. | Read

New Report: Washington’s Wealthiest ‘Rake It In’

04.09.2008 | Washington News Service | It's no surprise, but now it's documented in black and white: The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. It's happening in Washington as well as the rest of the country. A new report on "income inequality" says wages of the lowest-income families in the state have lost ground since the late 1990s, while the richest in Washington have made about 12 percent more money. | Read | Listen

Paid family leave is on track, and costs were lowered

04.04.2008 | Puget Sound Business Journal | Ask any parent, and he or she will tell you that bringing a new life into the world takes equal parts courage and hope. Ask any business owner, and that person will tell you that supporting the employees is good for the bottom line. That's why we're proud that Washington's Family Leave Insurance program is on track to deliver benefits to our families and businesses in October 2009. | Read

Washington stumbles toward landmark paid family leave

04.04.2008 | Crosscut.com | It's a glass-half-full or half-empty kind of a story: A year ago, Washington became only the second state in the nation to legislate paid family leave. This year, legislators failed to provide the program with a permanent funding source, but their budget did give it an administrative home and start-up funding of $6.2 million. Now it's likely New Jersey will pass Washington by, becoming the second state (after California) to implement paid family leave — and a more generous program than Washington's at that. | Read

Washington state lawmakers must find a way to pay for parental leave

03.14.2008 | Puget Sound Business Journal | Last year, Washington lawmakers created a family medical leave provision. The original idea was to let workers take paid time off to care for sick family members or a newborn or to recover from a disability. Workers would pay the cost. Through a 2-cent-an-hour tax on their wages -- or half the price of a medium drip coffee at Tully's every week -- they would receive $250 a week for up to five weeks of time off. Most other states that have paid "disability" coverage -- New York, New Jersey, California, Hawaii and Rhode Island -- have had it since the 1940s, said Marilyn Watkins, policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute, and the governor's appointee to the task force on this issue. | Read

WA Childcare Advocates Seek Advice from Finland, England

03.10.2008 | Public News Service | Juggling preschoolers and paychecks isn't as hard for families in some countries as it is for Americans. So, a group from Washington went to Finland and England recently, to see what they could learn about those countries' cultures and priorities. They found that taxes are high there, but tax dollars are used to cover costs of early learning and college, family leave, and healthcare -- expenses that most Americans pay on their own. | Read

Dos and Don’ts of Coping with State Budget Crises

02.20.2008 | California Progress Report | The budget news is grim in some states. Twenty states face a combined budget shortfall of at least $35 billion for 2009, according to analysis by the Center on Budget Policy & Priorities. Another 8 states will likely have budget problems next year or the year after. The impulse by some state leaders is to slash state spending, but that could be disastrous for the economy if multiple states lay off state workers and cut-off help to those in need just as private spending is falling. | Read

Family-leave program needs funding source

02.10.2008 | The Olympian | Creation of paid family leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted baby was a bold step forward by the 2007 Legislature. But a new program like paid leave is meaningless unless lawmakers decide how to pay for it. And now it appears that legislators have punted on that question two years in a row. The political reality is that lawmakers are hesitant to raise taxes or impose a new payroll tax to pay for family leave — and they are especially loath to do so in an election year. | Read

Family Leave: Fairer treatment

01.25.2008 | Seattle PI | When it comes to the first few weeks after a child's birth, the state of Washington plans to give parents a small taste of the fair treatment that is the standard worldwide. To make that happen, the Legislature has some work to do. | Read

WA's New Minimum Wage: Worth More than 14-Cents

01.09.2008 | Washington's minimum wage workers are getting a cost-of-living increase in their first paycheck of 2008, and it's nothing to sneeze at. That 14 cents per hour may not seem like much, but it adds up. After eight years with the state's minimum wage pegged to inflation, both workers and employers appear to have benefitted. | Read

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