Media Center | Press Releases

State of the State: Are we better off now that we were four years ago?

09.13.2004 | EOI | EOI's newest report on job growth & economic security since 2000 has found some improvement but little to cheer about as workers continue to struggle. | Read

California Launches Paid Family Leave Program - Washington Legislators Plan Similar Program, Polls Support Policy Change

07.01.2004 | EOI | On July 1, California’s new Paid Family Leave Law goes into effect, providing most Californians six weeks of partial pay when taking leave from work to care for a seriously ill parent, spouse, child, or domestic partner, or to bond with a new baby, foster, or adopted child. State Senator Karen Keiser and State Representative Mary Lou Dickerson plan to propose a similar program for Washington. | Read

Social Security Is One of the Best Friends American Women Have

04.19.2004 | EOI | Jennifer Dunn and Dorcas Hardy got one thing right in their opinion piece on Social Security (SeattlePI.com, Opinion, April 17, 2002). The system could be improved to work even better for American women. However, the radical restructuring that Dunn and Hardy suggest would slash guaranteed benefits and cost over $1 trillion. Privatizing Social Security is precisely the wrong approach for women and all Americans. | Read

Real Work, a Paycheck, and Education Lead to Success for Welfare Parents

04.16.2002 | EOI | Washington's Community Jobs program to be showcased in Washington D.C., as Congress takes up welfare reform legislation. | Read

Still Working Well - Report Challenges Critics' Claims On State Minimum Wage

01.27.2004 | EOI | Job growth trends do not support claims that Washington State's relatively high minimum wage is a cause of the state's high unemployment rate, according to a report released this month by the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI), a non-profit public policy institute. | Read

Privatizing Social Security put on hold―for good reason

01.01.2002 | EOI | Social Security reform now appears on the back burner. The commission has reluctantly admitted that privatization requires large benefit cuts and tax increases. To make such moves politically palatable, the commission takes a one-sided and alarmist view of Social Security's current benefits and future finances, and recommends waiting a year before tackling restructuring | Read

Dismantle the Commission, Not Social Security

05.08.2001 | EOI | George W. Bush promised us a commission on Social Security, and now he’s given us one. But this is one campaign promise he should have broken. Social Security is highly successful and solidly financed. Carving Social Security into individual private accounts as Bush and his carefully screened commission want would be disastrous for working families and for our nation as a whole. | Read

Bush's Push for Tax Cut Slows Attack on Social Security

03.01.2001 | EOI | Notably absent from the 2001 annual report of the Social Security trustees is the doom-and-gloom language required to “save” Social Security. The data remains remarkably the same from this year to last. After years of hearing about the need to plug the leaks in Social Security, why are we seeing a softening of the hard line? It’s simple: to make way for Bush’s tax cuts. | Read

Lessons from the Earthquake for President Bush

03.01.2001 | EOI | George W. Bush addressed the nation and the next morning the ground shook, longer and harder than most of us living on Puget Sound had ever experienced. Now, I don’t mean to imply any kind of divine judgment. But the earthquake does remind us of certain truths that Bush tried to obscure with his rhetoric, and those truths point towards very different values than the ones Bush expressed. | Read

Washington residents favor expanding family leave benefits

11.01.2000 | EOI | Results from a statewide poll commissioned by the Economic Opportunity Institute indicate that a vast majority of Washington residents favor expanding family leave benefits and are willing to pay for it. | Read

State Releases Community Jobs Evaluation

09.26.2000 | EOI | Successful program moves hard to employ people from welfare to work. | Read

Community Jobs and Welfare-to-Work Participants Move into Private Sector

05.04.2000 | EOI | Pierce County honors dozens of CJ and welfare-to-work participants. | Read