2025 Legislative Agenda
The Economic Opportunity Institute envisions a Washington that is a national model of opportunity with an economy that works for everyone. Our mission is to embed the values of fairness, care, and opportunity into the foundations of our state’s economy – thereby supporting thriving people and communities across the state.
Washington’s economy is out of step with our core values, as costs for housing, health care, and groceries skyrocket while income disparities and wealth inequality grow. This year, we worked with community partners and traveled across the state to talk with advocates, service providers, and community members about what their communities need most.
What we learned from these conversations – as well as from our own research and analysis – informs our 2025 legislative agenda. We want Washington to be a desirable and affordable place for people to live, and lawmakers have a responsibility to pass laws and make public investments that do just that.
Our top priorities for the 2025 Washington legislative session will center our values of fairness, care, and opportunity.
Fairness
We anticipate state revenue will fall well short of public needs, both during and beyond the 2025 legislative session. Lawmakers must take a different path to avoid repeating Great Recession-style budget cuts to education, housing, public employees’ wages, and critical services. Rather than making budget cuts that will take decades to recover from or adjusting the levers on inadequate, regressive taxes that overburden working families, lawmakers should empower themselves with new, better tools: progressive taxes on the wealthy and large, profitable corporations.
EOI will advocate for several new progressive taxes, including a payroll tax on employers of high earners and a tax on the ultra-wealthy to fund programs that positively impact low- and middle-income households in the short term and help slow the growth of wealth inequality over time. We support efforts to balance our tax code and increase corporate accountability.
Workers’ well-being is critical to an economy that works for all, so EOI will also advocate for an increase in the minimum wage and guaranteed paid leave for all workers. Finally, the Working Families Tax Credit plays a role in making Washington an affordable place for lower-income families – we must continue investing in and expanding this program.
Care
Our ability to care for ourselves and our loved ones is vital to thriving communities, but Washingtonians are being priced out of the care they need. EOI will advocate for a suite of health care bills designed to decrease costs and improve access, including increasing transparency and oversight, advocating for fair prices in public- and school-employee health care plans, safeguarding and growing Cascade Care subsidies, and funding the Apple Health Expansion for immigrants program. Paid Family and Medical Leave shines as a model program for extended leave from work during life’s most challenging moments. We aim to ensure equitable access to Washington’s program so that everyone working in Washington can access its benefits. In 2025, we will defend against cuts and advocate for several program improvements, including closing the job protection loophole and reducing the hours for intermittent use.
Opportunity
EOI aims to increase real opportunities for those who have been marginalized by economic systems that put a thumb on the scale for those with money and power. We will advocate for policies that level the economic playing field and against those that diminish income and create wealth inequality.
The Washington Future Fund provides low-income young adults with a government financial investment to help pay for things like higher education, the downpayment for a home, or the seeding of a new business. This fund would help level the playing field for young people who don’t have family wealth to help them stabilize on their own. We will also advocate for policies to expand other opportunities for Washingtonians, including cost-free college and addressing medical debt. Less debt means better credit scores and more money in your pockets —both of which can open doors that help families overcome barriers to economic stability.