News & Stories
Policy is personal. So, we want to share more than just data.
Stay up to date with our legislative updates, organizational news, media mentions, and more.
Fourteen years ago, the City of Seattle, King County and several other philanthropic and corporate partners embarked upon a bold new approach to end homelessness among families with children. Administered by Building Changes, the Washington Youth and Families Fund aimed to make youth and family homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring in our state. Yet just […]
When changes in her contract work at Microsoft timed with with her partner’s need for full-time care, Aganita Varkentine left the workforce earlier than she had anticipated. In order to care for her partner, Aganita had little choice but to begin her Social Security benefits at age 62, even though she knew her benefits would […]
When Emily Kim graduated from law school in 2011, the job market was bleak. She was thrilled when she landed her first position and she took the salary offered, fearing that negotiation might cost her the job. A while later, Emily assumed a role managing the office’s budget. In comparing past years’ payroll expenditures, Emily […]
This week, the Seattle Times published an article detailing the travails of people who are leaving the region after the recent property tax increase because taxes have become too high. King County is seeing a nearly 17 percent property-tax increase on average, with Snohomish County seeing 16 percent, Kitsap County 12 percent and Pierce County […]
My sister-in-law retired from the Auburn University Library in Alabama this past Friday and we travelled there to celebrate. Despite the beautiful weather, I can tell you is was not “Sweet Home Alabama.” On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I saw that white racism, mixed with fundamentalist Christianity, remains […]
In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump all recognized that workers and communities have lost trust in the NAFTA approach to globalization. They all said we should manage globalization differently. Over the last few months, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. have had seven meetings to renegotiate NAFTA. To understand the renegotiations, […]
Traveling from Rainier Beach to Ballard through the Central District and Queen Anne feels more like passing through four cities rather than through four pockets of the same one. Each neighborhood contributes to what we call Seattle, but there are stark, invisible lines demarcating one place from another. Seattle is still one of the whitest […]
Yesterday the Washington State Department of Commerce launched the new Retirement Marketplace, allowing workers and employers to save for retirement with ease. With over 2 million employees in our state unable to save for their retirement through their employers, this marketplace can be a big help. Almost half of all working age families have no […]
Don’t forget to thank your legislators for the progress they made this year – and be prepared to demand more when they come back next January.
Just in time for International Women’s Day on March 8, the Washington State Legislature today passed an updated Equal Pay bill which will make it easier for women to identify cases of discrimination and hold companies more accountable for them. Both houses approved it with a bipartisan supermajority: 36-12 in the Senate, 70-28 in the […]
Washingtonians who’ve worked full time since January 1 have earned a full day of sick leave, something previously unavailable to too many residents outside of Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane. In 2016, voters approved Initiative 1433, increasing the minimum wage and setting a statewide minimum standard of one hour of paid sick leave for every forty […]
That so-called “pro-family” agenda of today’s Republican party? Not so much. Their latest idea: cannibalize Social Security to fund paid family leave, and have parents work longer into old age (or take lower benefits). It’s a backdoor attempt, both shrewd and crass, to privatize and cut Social Security — one that would add yet another financial […]
Washington State made wage discrimination based on gender illegal in 1943. But that law has never been amended, and isn’t really enforced, so women in Washington still make 76.5 percent of men’s earnings. On January 17, a bipartisan supermajority in the Washington House of Representatives passed the Equal Pay Opportunity Act, which has teeth so […]
Last June, Gov. Jay Inslee made headlines when he signed a state budget totaling $43.4 billion in spending for 2017-19. Which of the following statements about that budget is true? A. State spending will grow 15.7% by 2019. B. State spending will grow 11.2% by 2019. C. State spending will grow 8.0% by 2019. D. […]