Band-Aid fixes won’t help Washington’s farmers
By Pam Lewison
Washington Policy Center
When a doctor diagnoses cancer, the expectation is a full course of treatment to eradicate the disease and keep a person alive, not a Band-Aid and well-wishes. The current budget has identified a cancer in the form of how agricultural overtime was introduced in Washington state, but rather than treat the problem, farmers and ranchers are being offered a Band-Aid.
The Senate operating budget contains $250,000 for a grant program to off-set the costs of paying overtime to any employer in our state who meets the qualifying criteria. The employer must be a Washington state resident, they must employ exclusively local workers, they must have paid at least four weeks of overtime last year, and they must grow specialty, hand-picked crops that are sold in-state or to schools. The reward for meeting that extremely restrictive set of criteria is $20,000.
Washington state’s minimum wage earners command $16.28 per hour, the second highest minimum wage in the nation. If that is the lowest benchmark for earning in the state, and the average farmworker works 20 hours of overtime in peak season, that is $487 per week in overtime pay. The Washington State Department of Commerce estimates there are 164,000 people employed in agriculture in our state. The most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture data notes there are 32,100 farms in Washington state.
With Washington state farms and ranches employing an average of five employees per farm, it would take the average farm just two months to reach the maximum payout of the grant program. Anecdotal reports say in 2023 most farms were paying upward of $23 per hour for farm work, meaning it would take a little less than six weeks to reach the maximum payout of the grant program.
At $250,000, the proviso would only cover overtime for about 15 farms.
It is refreshing to see a legislative acknowledgement of the mess the overtime law created. But the acknowledgement is much too little and much too late. A $250,000 grant program during a supplemental budget year when billions of dollars are being thrown around feels disingenuous, it feels like giving a cookie to an overly tired child you hope will go away.
If lawmakers really wanted to find a solution to the difficulties of overtime, they could. They could listen to the workers who were never asked for their thoughts to begin with. For too long agriculture has been told what to do and how to think by lawmakers who have no experience tending to fields. It is time to listen to the people who have the experience when they sit at a testimony table or line the steps of the capital asking for help.
In a state where the catastrophic effects of overtime legislation mean farms and ranches are vanishing at a rate of 14 per week, every week, it is incumbent upon the lawmakers who saw fit to enact overtime to fix it. If they don’t fix it, not only will there be no overtime to earn, but there will also be no regular time for farmworkers to earn either.
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Pam Lewison is the Center for Agriculture director at Washington Policy Center.
Passage of income tax ban is an important step forward for Washington
By Paul Guppy
Washington Policy Center
One of the most common sentiments heard these days is that elected officials don’t listen to us.
So it’s refreshing that state lawmakers have responded positively to a popular citizens’ measure, Initiative 2111, and adopted a ban on state and local income taxes. This forward-looking measure passed the legislature by wide bipartisan margins (76-21 in the House and 38-11 in the Senate).
If he could, Gov. Jay Inslee would no doubt stop an income tax ban; he has amply demonstrated his desire is to increase — not limit — the state’s power to add to our tax burden. As a citizens’ initiative, however, he has no power to veto it.
Stopping elites from imposing an income tax is certainly popular. Initiative 2111 got 446,000 signatures, over 120,000 more than it needed. Voters have rejected a state income tax 10 times, most recently in 2010 by a crushing 64%. In all, 28 cities and counties have passed local income tax bans.
Conversely, there are few political ideas that are less popular in Washington state than imposing an income tax. The idea is less popular than the COVID-era school closures.
If Washington has a political third rail, it’s supporting a state income tax. Even far-left Seattle-based lawmakers are reluctant to admit publicly that they’re for it.
While passing the initiative is a positive step, the legislature should consider a constitutional amendment, like the one proposed in 2017 by Senate Joint Resolution 8204, so citizens can be confident future lawmakers won’t repeal the ban and push an income tax.
The central principle of democracy is respecting the will of the people, especially in support of a bipartisan policy that has been successful and popular for many decades. The passage of Initiative 2111 is an encouraging sign of real progress. Let’s hope that on other policy issues elected officials respond just as positively to the people they represent.
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Paul Guppy is the Washington Policy Center vice president for research.
