News & Stories

Sunset today will be at 4:16 PM. Sunset tomorrow is at 4:17 PM. Every afternoon onward the sun sets a little later, and gradually light returns to our state. Ancient Rome celebrated the winter solstice with the pagan festival called Saturnalia, meaning “the birthday of the unconquered sun”. Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. Jews […]

Seattle’s own Erica C. Barnett takes a closer look at recent paid family leave plans passed by Seattle and King County, and finds the city provides as little as four weeks guaranteed time off, while the county guarantees 12 weeks but requires long-term employees to exhaust as much as 10 weeks of their sick leave, […]

UPDATE: WE’RE SOLD OUT! If you’ve previously RSVP’d and are no longer planning to attend, please cancel via EventBrite or by contacting us at info@eoionline.org. ==== Like any agreement, the Trans Pacific Partnership (if ratified by Congress) will create winners and losers. Weighing in at more than 2,700 pages, the 12-country pact isn’t as much […]

We’re looking for our next great development professional! This position will work closely with the Executive Director and other key staff to raise funds in support of EOI’s mission and policy areas, with a current annual fundraising goal of approximately $950,000. Areas of responsibility include: create and manage strategic financial development plans; manage individual and […]

I recently purchased a T-shirt from the Boeing store for my daughter, who is fan of the 737. It says, “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going!” That may be true for her — but Boeing jobs are certainly on their way out of Washington. How can this be? The Legislature met for a three-day […]

The polls may tell us we’re divided on who to vote for, but in our hearts I think we all want similar things: to ensure kids can get a strong start in life, to have a college degree or a professional trade to be within everyone’s reach, to have clean and safe places to play; […]

The election yielded mixed results, looking across the country and across Washington. But digging down a bit, there are some gems I’d like to highlight: Economic Opportunity Institute Board member Jessie Baines won his campaign for the Metropolitan Parks Commission of Tacoma. This was Jessie’s first run for office, he took on an incumbent, and won […]

Amazon has joined the growing list of tech companies to expand paid parental leave policies. Earlier this year, Microsoft, Netflix, and Adobe also announced more time off for new mothers and fathers. Between them, Microsoft and Amazon have over 60,000 employees in the Seattle area. The City of Seattle, King County, Port of Seattle, and Gates Foundation […]

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the Seattle Office of Labor Standards is highlighting the safe time provisions of Seattle’s Paid Sick and Safe Time (PSST) law. You can download new flier about safe time protections to educate your co-workers, family, neighbors, and sister organizations. Available in English or Spanish. Here in Seattle and King County, many […]

Recently the State Senate Early Learning and Education Committee brought their listening tour about K-12 education to Everett. This listening tour has come about as the Legislature has been found in contempt by our state Supreme Court of failing to meet “the paramount constitutional duty … to make ample provision for the education of all […]

SEATTLE – The issue of paid family leave is coming into the forefront in Washington again. The state is among eight recently selected for a federal grant to research the benefits of implementing a paid family and medical leave program. The $247,000 grant will allow Washington to put the paid leave program, adopted by the […]

Need to fact-check someone during a Facebook debate, or just prep for an intense upcoming round of pub trivia? EOI has you covered. EOI’s State of Washington Budget visualization let’s you see budget trends as far back as 2004 and as far ahead as 2017, on a scale as broad as the state’s overall budget or as specific as an individual department within an agency. All charts […]

In a democracy, all citizens should be able to vote. Laws shouldn’t make it harder to vote. Laws should ease the way to voting. That is, unless we don’t want all citizens to vote. But if that is the case, we have a pretty poor democracy. More than a quarter of voting-age adults in our […]

California women now have a better chance at equal pay. Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new law that both allows employees to freely discuss pay in the workplace and broadens existing pay discrimination laws to cover “substantially similar work.” Too many employers across the nation hide behind pay secrecy policies and play games with […]

Here’s our latest Social Security music video, “Work ‘Till We Die” — it’s got a country/honky-tonk feel, and a catchy little chorus you’ll be humming later. Be sure to sign this letter telling the President and Congress to expand Social Security and “scrap the cap” so everyone pays the same tax rate for the same […]

For over 17 years, EOI has fought for an economy that works for everyone. So far in 2015, the Washington Small Business Retirement Marketplace bill was signed into law, the number of states introducing our signature Pay It Forward higher education legislation increased to 27, we saw Tacoma finally pass a Paid Sick and Safe Leave […]

WASHINGTON | Advocates for paid family and medical leave applauded the U.S. Department of Labor’s decision to award $247,000 to Washington state to study the economic impacts of implementing a paid family and medical leave program. “The Washington Work and Family Coalition is excited by this news and what it could mean for the families of […]

Good public schools won’t solve all the problems we face — but public education is a crucial cornerstone for creating hope and opportunity for students, and for building stronger communities and a more prosperous, equitable economy. Ensuring every child has equal access to this ladder of opportunity, from pre-school through higher education, is the most […]