News & Stories

This week is the real start of the new year. Parents take their five-year-olds to their first day of kindergarten, kids return to new grades and new expectations, high schools gear up for football and cross country and soccer, the weather turns colder and wetter, the days are shorter, and our teachers renew their calling […]

Adjusted for inflation, the total cost of higher education hasn’t changed much since the mid-1990’s. But the state’s share of that cost has dropped like a stone. Tuition and fees have increased to make up for state funding cuts — putting college out of reach for thousands of Washington’s high school graduates. For example, at the […]

To gain additional insight into the extent to which lower wage workers in Seattle are aware of the sick leave law and have access to paid sick leave, the Economic Opportunity Institute conducted a survey in partnership with the YWCA Seattle|King|Snohomish in the spring of 2015. One standout finding: Life doesn’t happen in averages. Just under half (48%) […]

Twelve days ago the State Supreme Court found that the Legislature is in “ongoing violation of its constitutional obligation to amply provide for public education.” It imposed a $100,000-a-day fine until a funding plan for this obligation has been satisfied. That adds up to about $3 million a month, which may seem like a lot, […]

We celebrate Women’s Equality Day on August 26 – the 95th anniversary of women in the U.S. winning the right to vote. It was not an easy victory. It took 72 years, with a multitude of activists using many tactics, from the formal launch of the women’s rights movement at Seneca Falls in 1848 to […]

The Washington State Supreme Court found  the State in “ongoing violation of its constitutional obligation to amply provide for public education.”  On August 13, 2015, the Court imposed a $100,000-a-day fine on the state until a satisfactory plan to meet this obligation has been adopted. Washington underfunds education because our tax structure cannot produce enough […]

Via Puget Sound Sage: Against the full force of big business (Alaska Airlines) and our own publicly owned airport (Port of Seattle) – including the best lawyers money can buy – we have shown once again that the people can prevail (and our lawyers are smarter than theirs). The SeaTac minimum wage was won in November […]

If you are a Republican wanting to vote in the upcoming general election for Snohomish County offices, don’t bother. There are no Republican candidates for whom to vote. That is the sad outcome of an initiative that the voters in our state approved in 2004. With this initiative, the people voted to switch our method […]

[Via Public News Service] The 80th birthday of Social Security is next week, and every 2016 presidential candidate has ideas for changing the system – whether that means strengthening it or scrapping it. It’s expected to be among the topics of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders’ remarks this weekend in Seattle. More than 1.2 million Washingtonians […]

[Cross-posted from Equalisea] “I’ve been taking copious notes!” smiled Washington State Senator Karen Kaiser. On July 8, I was at a “salon,” a panel with a small audience, about economic security for women in Washington State, and it appeared the panelists were learning as much from each other as the audience was learning from them. […]

In the last week, Black women in the U.S. finally caught up to what the typical White man made in 2014. That is, a Black woman in the middle of the income spectrum has to work full-time for nearly 19 months to bring home what a White man can make in 12 months. Latina women […]

It didn’t take long before the Legislature stopped its crowing about how it funded K-12 education and admitted that it was far from the mandates of the State Supreme Court for basic education. How is that? It starts with Stephanie and Matthew McCleary, parents of two public school kids on the Olympic peninsula. They sued […]

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Social Security, one of our nation’s most important programs. Social Security ensures working people and their families reliable income to meet their basic needs – in retirement or if the worker dies or becomes disabled. In 2014, Social Security provided basic income to 59 million Americans – and […]

If you’ve ever wondered how a small team of dedicated policy nerds could make a difference, wonder no more.* Check out our 2014 Annual Report to learn how EOI is helping build an economy that works for everyone by advancing public policies that promote educational opportunity, good jobs, healthy families and workplaces, and a dignified […]

Last November, Washington voters passed Initiative 1351. I-1351 directed the Legislature to allocate funding for smaller K-12 class sizes, with extra class-size reductions in high-poverty schools. Increased funding for these changes was to have been phased in over four years. This would have required an expenditure of about $800 million next year. That was the […]

In 2013, UMass agreed with the Massachusetts state legislature to freeze tuition so long as the state provided adequate higher education funding. Just two years later, the state hasn’t held up its end of the deal and UMass has had to increase tuition. In fact, tuition at UMass has increased $3,313 since the start of […]

Let’s start with the good news The Washington State Legislature just passed a historic budget that’s already making national headlines for cutting tuition at all of our state’s public institutions for the first time in decades. Late Tuesday night, the Governor signed a compromise budget proposal which includes tuition decreases over two years of 15% […]

Last week, Washington legislators and the Governor managed to pass a state budget and avert a government shutdown. The new budget boosts K-12 funding just enough to maybe hit this year’s target set by the state Supreme Court in the McCleary decision. But the Legislature failed to achieve a long term plan for amply funding […]

As we celebrate our nation’s birthday on the Fourth of July, perhaps we should do some reflecting about our nation, especially as we consider last month’s murder of nine black citizens in South Carolina. Our forefathers declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by […]

It’s a good time to talk about money, who has it and who doesn’t, especially with the Legislature at loggerheads about the budget. Why? Because the taxes that fund our state’s budget come largely from the money we all spend. Notice I said “money we all spend,” not “money we all make”? In most other […]