Seattle continues efforts to kill jobs...

Awhile back there was a Porkulus story about a failed "green jobs" program in Seattle. It didn't work because to get the money you had to pay workers $25 an hour, what Seattle bureaucrats decided was a "living wage", while the going rate for construction work was $14 an hour. IIRC, there was even a not wanting to be in a "race to the bottom" quote, rationalizing the higher pay.

Well they're at it again. They've decided if you have a business with more than 4 employees, you need to give them paid sick leave. Why saddle businesses with additional costs to hiring people during historic unemployment? I'll let Mayor Mike McGinn explain that:

One wonders what "top" he is racing to? Highest unemployment?

:edit:

Sounds like typical Liberalism....pay people for not working...

So an Employer not only has to pay someone whose out of work sick but then if they out long enough have to pay someone to do that person's job...paying 2 people for one job....yea Employers are going to rush to Seattle to set up shop.

Another example of policy that will hurt the very people it's supposed to help.



And the "race to the bottom" comment is about as close to pure economic ignorance as you can get. The policymakers seem completely divorced from the reality that making employees more expensive is the fastest way to the bottom (since they'll be unemployed). Less expensive employees are more likely to be hired.

According to proponents when this was put in place by San Francisco a year later a poll of small business owners showed it had no effect on hiring and that by then most were in favor of it. IIRC most employees took less than half of their days as well.

First off, most jobs in Seattle already have paid sick leave. Many of those that don't are service jobs that can't really leave.

This is what kills me. If paid sick leave is a public health issue, why give Unions the right to bargain it away?

Because Unions pad their election coffers, that's why.

Here's the Times write up on it:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016188951_paidsickleave13m.html

I have 300 hours of sick time saved up.

I love poking Ankles with a stick.

Anyway, say you're unemployed. Say someone comes up to you and offers you $14 an hour for a relatively shitty job. After 6 months you qualify for relatively shitty insurance. But you don't get any paid vacation or sick time.

Do you say "no thanks, I'll keep looking," or do you take the money so you can pay your bills?

Then say you're the startup entrepreneur and you're suddenly saddled with a burden of paying people to not come in to work. Do you do that "for the greater good", or do you figure out a way to fire that fourth employee so you can avoid the law?



Or say that isn't an option. Then you fall into the boat of the businessman in the story: You have X dollars to spend on employees. Suddenly The Government says you need to spend Y dollars on employees. Do you figure out how increase your budget to X+Y, or do you figure out a way to X-Y your existing budget to pay for the unfunded mandate?

Or do you just jack up your prices by a factor of Y during a recession?

Well, no startup has to pay for the first two years. And it's the fifth FTE, not the fourth that triggers it.

There is a reason I posted the Times article, as usual Fox News left out that which didn't jive with what they wanted to say.

...to do anything but die a slow and very, very, very painful* death?







* - I'm talking nails on the cross type pain for each and every Union Leader.

I started the year with 245 hours of "paid time off" (can be used as either sick time or personal time). I'm down to 95 at the moment. I can carry 80 over to next year, but I'd like to get down to 40 by Dec, to use as snow days, or carry over to next year if not.

My boss had about 300 hours this year, and she's been taking every Friday off during the summer just to burn them.

We also get a week off between Christmas and New Year.

I actually didn't know any company didn't allow sick time. Seems fairly inhumane.

Most do. And as I said above with the startup exception and 5 employee threshold this is expected to pretty much only impact low level service jobs. The kind of businesses that can't really relocate. When Diamond has to start giving their parking attendants sick days, it's not like they are going to pick up and move their parking lots to Bellevue.

My biggest problem with this is the union exception. If this is being sold as a public health law, does a bargaining agreement somehow mean union employees CAN'T get sick?!?!

My former company gave us 5 vacation days and 5 personal days a year. I used them sparingly because I never knew if I'd need them if I was sick. They also didn't have a 401K plan either.

Other than getting a check, I don't miss them at all.

I worked construction in Phoenix AZ in the 80's.
No paid holidays, no paid sick time, no 401K, it rains you don't work (no pay)....two fifteen minute breaks a day, and one of these was your "lunch."

No surprise life improved greatly when I joined The Army.

Seattle should be nuked for the good of the country. Just to be sure.

Whelp. Fox was right. The year after enacting paid sick leave, the economy tanked and Seattle had the worst population and job growth in the nation.

Oh wait... oops. I was reading the charts wrong. Turns out Seattle had the BEST population and job growth in the nation. Heh.. wow. Wonder how they managed that, what with the job killing paid sick leave.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-g...e-is-the-fastest-growing-big-city-in-the-u-s/

And it's not just the region doing well, but specifically Seattle. Two years ago Seattle grew faster than it's suburbs for the first time in 100 years. Last year the growth rate in the city was double that in the suburbs (together Seattle and it's suburbs accounted for over half of all growth in the State).

Maybe the suburbs should look at adding paid sick leave.

And it turns out the same thing happened here. When the City Auditor asked the University of Washington to study the effects, the majority of business owners now support the ordinance. Also while most said implementing it was painless, about a 1/3rd had initial difficulties but almost all of those said the difficulties were temporary.

http://www.seattlemet.com/data/files/2014/4/attachment/194/PSSTO_UWReport_wAppendices_copy.pdf

Yep, almost all the increase was in the food and hotel industry.

"Employers in the food and accommodation sector posted the greatest increase, with 78% of employers now providing paid leave coverage, up from 14% a year prior."

http://www.seattlemet.com/data/files/2014/4/attachment/194/PSSTO_UWReport_wAppendices_copy.pdf

I think some of the people here think that paid sick leave is unlimited. Like they could be out for a month with a cold and still get paid.

Seattle is ruined!

If they just hurry up, and cut through the red tape holding up full un-ambiguous weed legalization, they'll have all the "green jobs", they can handle.

The stores open this summer:
http://www.livetradingnews.com/wash...es-to-open-this-summer-49179.htm#.U4IrVPldVhw

Until then there is always the Weed Fairy
http://www.king5.com/news/cities/seattle/Weed-Fairy-visits-Seattle-and-leaves-a-trail-260503131.html

I'm loving the delivery service.
http://www.winterlifecoop.com/

I enjoy these old threads.

I like pie.

In Q3 Seattle had the highest demand for new office space in the nation. Higher than NYC and Chicago. In RAW NUMBERS, not percentages. Companies in the city leased 1.3m new sqf of office space in the quarter.

http://www.seattletimes.com/busines...ed-up-more-space-in-seattle-than-nyc-chicago/

Apparently paid sick leave and the highest minimum wage in the nation aren't enough to kill jobs.