News & Stories

From the Everett Herald: Boeing’s second quarter profit was $998 million. That’s $46 million more than a year ago. How does this work, with the 787 sucking up billions of dollars in development and mistakes? The answer is embedded in Boeing’s tried-and-true, decades-old business model. Boeing made more than $800 million from its commercial airline […]

For a small- or medium-sized business owner, starting a retirement plan can be daunting. The complexity of existing plans makes choosing one a time-consuming and overwhelming process. One of the most difficult decisions is choosing a company to administer the plan. There are many different investment companies, banks, and insurance companies, each with products geared […]

Of 158 million workers in the U.S. in 2007, only 52% (81.9 million) worked for an employer or union that sponsored a pension or retirement plan. Overall, just 41.5% of workers – 65.6 million people – were covered by those plans. The number one reason workers do not have a pension or retirement plan is […]

Focusing scarce public resources on students from the lowest-income families is a reasonable policy choice, but the long term disinvestment in higher education by both the state and federal governments has clearly limited college access for low income and middle class students. As the cost of attending college continues to escalate, more and more students […]

Low-income state residents are not the only ones whose dreams of higher education are thwarted by rising tuition. While schools have at least attempted to off-set some of the rising costs for low-income students, middle-income students and their families, particularly those who fall just above the cutoffs for most benefits, end up being hit hard. […]

Legislators and education administrators claim that higher income families can afford tuition hikes, and that lower income students will receive increased financial aid, both from the state and from new federal policies. However, the evidence suggests that injecting a market-driven model of financing into the public sphere of education will lead to a lack of […]

For the past thirty years, Washington State has been reducing the level of appropriations to higher education. In 1980-81, undergraduate tuition accounted for 25% of the total costs of undergraduate instruction in research universities, while the state covered the remaining 75%. By the 2007-08 academic year, tuition covered 62% and the state only 38%. The […]

Access to higher education is a key contributor to family economic security and upward mobility. But despite the acknowledged importance of higher education to state residents and businesses, Washington lags other states in promoting college access. Since 1980, median family incomes have risen steadily for adults with four-year or graduate degrees, but have stagnated or […]

In Washington and across the country, far more men have lost jobs than women, and it’s a situation that has reversed the role of “breadwinner,” even in the most traditional families. The main reason is that jobs filled mostly by men are in some of the hardest-hit industries, like manufacturing and construction. Those two categories […]

When the federal minimum wage increases from $6.55 to $7.25 this Friday, an estimated 4.5 million of America’s lowest paid workers will receive a raise. It’s an important step in supporting both economic growth and economic security in America. However, the increase still leaves the real value of the minimum wage lower than it was […]

Reprinted from the Everett Herald: Things haven’t exactly worked out for Boeing’s 787 global production strategy. The Chicago-based corporation farmed out the pieces to sites around the world, and then brought them back to Everett to be fitted together. It is hard to maintain quality controls when the production and design is shopped out to […]

Three legs underpin the early education “stool”: Accessible care, affordable prices, and professional teachers. And while some good strides have been made in those arenas, three recent posts on the New America Early Ed blog highlight just how much ground we have left to cover: ‘A Confusing and Frustrating Maze’: Underlying Reasons for Underenrollment in […]

Debate over government-funded police protection heats up: Now that the president and the Democrats in Congress have set a fall deadline for legislative action on universal police protection for all Americans, battle lines are being drawn on Capitol Hill. On the right are conservative defenders of America’s system of for-profit, private mercenaries. The Democrats are […]

From the Everett Herald: Does the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice? Martin Luther King Jr. believed that it did, and so have millions of other people who want to see justice achieved. But justice and injustice are episodic. We have made great progress in the 20th and 21st centuries, progress for well-being, […]

The idea is simple: Ensure every worker in America has the right to earn paid sick days on the job. Catchy, isn’t it? MarketWatch – the online media group owned by the Wall Street Journal – recently published a great article called “Ill and on the Job” which nicely encapsulates the current policy discussion. and […]

From the Seattle Post-Globe: The health care debate is heating up, for good reason. In our state, tens of thousands of people lost their health coverage when they lost their jobs. They will soon be joined by tens of thousands more who are losing their Basic Health coverage. The number of uninsured has spiked to […]

The Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council’s June presentation provides a concise overview of the official state forecast for economic recovery. Key findings include: There are some tentative signs that the bottom of the recession is near; economic  activity continues to decline, but at a slower pace. Washington’s economy is well positioned to recover […]

Some media outlets have taken to calling our current economic woes “The Great Recession.” Anytime people lose their jobs and businesses close, it causes family and community hardship — recession or not. But how does this recession really stack up against others in recent memory? To shed some light on that question, following are “apples-to-apples” […]

A local law firm already forced Seattle Public Schools to shelve the racial tie-breaker. Now it’s making the district pay the legal bill. From Real Change News: Pro bono is a term used by lawyers for legal work they perform without reimbursement or compensation. Legal firms — especially the large ones that charge several hundreds […]

From Washington News Service: Washington, DC – Many working families are victims of a corporate culture and public policies that were forged in the middle of the last century, when Dads went to work and Moms cared for the kids at home, according to the National Association of Mothers’ Centers. “Bring us into the 21st […]

It’s been about eight years since we’ve heard the “deficit hawks” sing their song – but it’s an easy one to remember because the tune is always the same. Funny how it’s always sung loudest when the conversation turns to investments in improved health, education or infrastructure. So says Robert Reich in The Great Debt […]