That state desperately needs to restructure its finances but the legislature is almost complete captured by clueless ideologues. Washington isn't California. Most of the attraction of living there historically was its extremely business-friendly environment.
I've lived a large fraction of my life in Washington and I'm watching the State commit suicide in real-time.
How old are you? What propaganda told you this? In my generation (young millennial/genz) the attraction of living in Seattle, which pulled me and almost a dozen professional friends at this point has been:
- high quality urban living in a temperate environment. Including access to great parks, waterfront, bikeability in the city
- access to great outdoors and regional amenities like skiing, ocean fishing, hiking, wine country
- liberal policies and general friendly society (it’s friendlier here than the east coast)
- no state income tax (we’re all very high tax bracket)
- a high enough income population that you can find a plethora of high-end products and services that cluster around high income earners (only a few us cities have this stronger than Seattle I feel)
That doesn't explain everything, obviously, but I think you need to take it into consideration. For decades I've heard this in some form from people: "Oregon is amazing, but I had to leave when I couldn't get a job." Meanwhile the Sea-Tac region has had amazing growth, packed wall-to-wall with a range of companies.
Another interesting anecdote is that I know many people who work remote for companies all over the world who moved to the Seattle area once they had a remote job. I am one of these people who moved once I got a remote job. Im not sure what kind of impact this has long run. I think the flywheel drawing high skill people to Seattle is still very strong.
If you're not too high an income earner, the Oregon income tax is worse than California's.
And no, Washington's sales tax doesn't come close to the Oregon income tax.
A. Their job is only available here
B. No state income tax
(C?). They REALLY love skiing/hiking
People have always regularly left for NYC/Bay Area, but I predict it will start to happen in droves over the next few years as A rapidly fades and legislation begins to threaten B.
The budget expansion is almost entirely by medicaide.
Looking at 2019-2023
* Human Services: +~50% nominal → ~+22% real — biggest absolute dollar growth, driven almost entirely by Medicaid expansion and COVID enrollment
* K-12: +23% nominal → ~0% real — flat in purchasing power
* Higher Education: +~20% nominal → ~-2% real — slight real decline
* Government Operations: +~30% nominal → ~+6% real — modest real growth, headcount/compensation driven
* Natural Resources: +~25% nominal → ~+2% real — roughly flat
* Total Budget: +43.5% nominal → ~+17% real
