Microsoft learns money alone can’t fix Seattle’s housing mess
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This article is clearly one-sided. I was most intrigued by the “democracy voucher” idea. Never heard of it before. It seems like a reasonable idea to offset corporation influence, but why is it funded solely by property tax? If you want to stick it to the big corporations shouldn’t it be funded by a tax on the big corporations? Seems property owners are always the default go-to ATM.
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“People working in the information sector – which includes tech workers – in the county earned an average of $5,367 a week in total compensation. That equated to about $279,000 a year, a number that includes bonuses, stock and benefits. Those in the information sector were the most highly paid, on average, in King County, according to the report. They accounted for 124,500 employees in the area at 2,600 establishments. The sector saw an 8.1% increase in employment between September 2018 and September 2019, according to the data.”
I was never of fan of Seattle. But my old fraternity brother sent me this.
Seattle, Washington
Let’s see:
January 2019: destruction by wind
February 2019: housebound by snow
February 2020: housebound by rain and floods
March 2020: housebound by Covid-19
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Your turn SF, but I don’t see you beating this.
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Burning man has been banned. Antifa has decided to hold it In Seattle instead. Looks like Seattle wants to out crazy SF
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The hair salon owners I know are on the edge of the autonomous zone. They went from forced closure for weeks to open at 15% capacity to people being too scared to visit the salon. The irony is they are second generation immigrants from Honduras. They were excited about re-opening, since a bunch of their competitors closed during SIP. They couldn’t keep paying rent during it.
Hope not.
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Great work! Seattle found a perfect workaround for the income tax ban: charge a payroll tax at the corporate level instead, which is economically the same as income tax, only more efficient.
Garbage. Taxes should apply to all people equally or no one at all.
Mosqueda’s plan, which passed a city committee this past week and is expected to pass a full council vote Monday, would place a 0.7% tax on pay in the city higher than $150,000, assessed on the company’s payroll. The rate goes up to 1.7% for pay above $400,000. Then it tiers even higher for the biggest businesses — in other words, Amazon would pay up to a 2.4% levy on compensation north of $400,000. All smaller businesses with payrolls below $7 million are excluded, and no business would pay anything for any worker making less than $150,000.
Rationale for payroll tax when already collecting state income tax? Corporate paying instead of individuals, so is not the same? AMZN should move 1st HQ out of Seattle to say, Austin 
There is no state income tax. It’s a blatant attempt to tax specific companies to pay for left wing special interest projects. Since the $100k+/yr of spending per homeless person isn’t enough. Spending $12M per mile for bicycle lanes that eliminate a lane for cars isn’t enough. The city is horrifically irresponsible with it’s budget, and it blames corporations. Tax revenue is up 40% while population growth is 10%.
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Seattle is doomed. I have a future tenant desperate to get out of there. It’s just Oakland with bad weather
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Tell them to come to San Francisco. May as well get the real SF experience. 
lot of people(in power and in close association to ppl in power) are actually making the dough while waxing eloquent about helping the poor & down trodden.
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They call me because rents are half what they are in coastal cities. People are sick of high rents, crime, traffic crowds, closed venues and bad attitudes. Country living is hip again