News & Stories

Representatives Pete Stark (D-CA), George Miller (D-CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) today introduced landmark legislation to provide workers with 12 weeks of paid leave in order to care for a new child, a sick family member, recover from an illness, or because of an exigency arising from the deployment of a member […]

For most people, tax season officially ends in April. But for state policymakers, it’s always open season on taxes. With I-960 in the courts and Washington State in a recession, balancing the state budget next year may prove to be a greater challenge than ever. How will we fund vital state services in a fair […]

Maine Governor John Baldacci signed a new state minimum wage into law on Thursday, providing a modest increase in the state’s minimum wage to $7.50 by October 1, 2009. Importantly, the new law also closes loopholes that previously excluded various categories of low-wage workers from minimum wage or overtime coverage. Maine’s minimum wage now covers […]

Plate tectonics aren’t particularly easy to see – but we can feel the results, which can literally move mountains. Such is the case with the debate over education funding in Washington State. The Daily News and the Columbian have editorials within a week of each other calling for more investment in education. Neither mentions two […]

Legislators in Maine and Iowa are taking new steps to improve and protect wages for workers. And most businesses may not even notice the difference. The Maine House and Senate approved a bill raising the state’s $7 hourly minimum wage by a half dollar (though additional votes are set on the measure in both legislative […]

New Jersey is set to become the third state in the nation (after California and Washington) to provide workers with paid family leave benefits, after a huge grassroots push. Despite the fact that New Jersey’s program (summary) has no direct cost to employers, numerous protections for business, and that the benefits of paid family leave […]

In just the last year, we have seen a mortgage loan crisis, banks failing, and the stock market plunge. It’s no wonder that American’s are concerned about their retirement security. A recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that the percentage of workers who feel very confident that they will have a comfortable […]

David Goldstein beautifully parses the pundits’ (and politicians’) pronouncements on state budgets, taxes and economic growth here. The highlights: General fund spending under Gov. Gregoire has merely followed the same trend established during the 1990s As a share of the total state economy, Washington’s 2007-2009 budget actually represents a reduced investment – that is, a […]

Steven C. Pitts and William E. Spriggs, co-authors of Beyond the Mountaintop: King’s Prescription for Poverty, connect the dots between real compassion and economic policy in the Philadelphia Inquirer: Some might be tempted to reflect on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by focusing on his dream […]

Crosscut’s Carolyn McConnell takes a long look at the history and progress of Washington’s paid family leave program, calling it “a glass-half-full or half-empty kind of a story”. Also today, two key legislators write in the Puget Sound Business Journal (subscription required) under the headline “Paid family leave is on track”, pointing to reduced costs […]

Froma Harrop’s Sunday column in the Seattle P-I is a breath of fresh air. The simple fact that Social Security is solvent through 2041 is lost on many who would rather ring false alarm bells to drum up support for privatization schemes – but not Harrop, who writes: If politicians want to agonize over retiree […]

This fall, the Washington Legislature compromised on a supplemental state budget that begins catching up to the needs of teachers and children in Washington State. The budget continues a 10-year phase-in of full-day kindergarten, while giving teachers half a percent salary increase (on top of their annual cost-of-living-adjustment) to make up for pay increases suspended […]

While Washington State’s workers enjoy a strong minimum wage indexed to inflation, working families in other states aren’t so lucky. But there are many movements are afoot to change that. In Texas (at Baylor University), supporters say: “As Christians, we must do better than simply meeting the “minimum” requirements established by the federal government.” In […]

With the underlying framework of Washington’s tax system essentially unchanged since the 1930’s, it’s not a surprise that our state’s tax base is shrinking relative to the state’s economy. The state’s General Fund relies on three major sources of revenue: sales, business (B&O), and property taxes. These taxes concentrate on parts of the economy that […]

The National Institute for Early Education Research released their annual “State of Preschool” Yearbook today, providing a truly comprehensive look at the size, spending, and quality of state pre-k programs across the country. (This on the heels of National Mathematics Advisory Panel’s (NMAP) new report on math instruction, which lists dozens of recommendations adding up […]

Even though Washington’s Family Leave Insurance program is on track deliver benefits to our families and businesses in October 2009, it hasn’t kept some of those opposed to the idea from trying to stop the train after it’s left the station. A Feb. 29th column by State Rep. Cary Condotta (R-East Wenatchee) and Sen. Janea […]

Today’s Puget Sound Business Journal editorial urges state lawmakers to “find a way to pay for parental leave” and supports an employee-funded approach to pay for it, noting that: 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. […]

According to a new study released just days ago by the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of American mothers cobble together some sort of paid leave following childbirth by using a combination of sick days, vacation days, disability leave, and employer-provided maternity leave. It is promising to see that more employers are offering paid maternity […]

New Jersey moved closer on Thursday to becoming the third state in the country (after California and Washington) to give employees the right to paid family leave. Legislation going to that state’s Senate next week will offer people six weeks of paid leave to care for a sick family member at two-thirds of their salary, […]

The Washington, D.C. Council voted unanimously to make Washington, D.C. the second city in the country (after San Francisco) to require employers to grant their workers paid sick leave. Legislation to establish minimum standards of paid sick leave in Washington State was introduced in the 2006 legislature. Under D.C.’s Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act, […]

Keep an ear tuned for this, from the Washington News Service: Life is better in Finland – at least, if you’re a preschooler or parent. A group of Washington businesspeople, educators and lawmakers took a fact-finding tour to see why Finland is at the top of so many educational achievement lists. They found that taxes […]

A recent press release from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is titled “Teachers’ pay continues to slide” – which would seem to say it all, but there is more to the story. While legislators are debating an additional 1% increase in teachers’ salaries in this year’s state budget, EPI’s report reveals a large and growing […]

Two great quotes from guest blogger Sean Corcoran, an economist who teaches at the Steinhardt School of Education at NYU, on Eduwonkette today: “I don’t see why a good teacher should be paid less money than a bad senator… It is unconscionable that the average salary of a lawyer is $79,000 a year and the […]

Some interesting assertions by State Rep. Bruce Chandler (R-Granger) in his guest column in yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer; he claims (erroneously) that Washington’s Family Leave Insurance program “will only be used by the prosperous…[it] could be funded by the poor working-class folks to give the more prosperous a benefit” and asserts family leave is”being rushed through […]