Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
The debate over Washington’s new millionaires’ tax is not over
By Venice Buhain
Joe Wallin is a Seattle attorney for startup founders and investors. Even though Washington’s millionaires’ tax won’t take effect until 2028, he says some of his clients are already asking about how to minimize paying it, including moving to other states.
“These are already people who have second, third homes and they already spend time elsewhere. And it's certainly not hard for them to say, well, I'm gonna spend more time over there,” said Wallin, who is also the author of Washington Tax Guide for High Earners.
Last legislative session, the state passed a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million.
Washington has been one of nine states that doesn’t have an income tax, relying instead on sales, business, gas and other taxes to fill state coffers.
In 1932, voters overwhelmingly approved an income tax. But the Washington Supreme Court ruled the following year that income should be considered property, and thus that income tax was against the state constitution. Other attempts to change the tax code since then have failed, most recently in 2010.
As passed, the Millionaire’s Tax will:
• Impose a 9.9% tax on income in excess of $1 million.
• Apply to about 20,000 Washington residents.
• Raise about $3.5 billion dollars in its first year.
• Start collection in 2029.
So, for someone making $1.2 million, they would be taxed on $200,000, which at 9.9%, is a bill of $19,800.
Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, and others called the tax on millionaires a step toward changing Washington’s system, where historically, people with lower incomes have paid a greater percentage of their income on sales, gas and other taxes than do people with higher incomes.
“The millionaires’ tax is an attempt to correct that upside down tax system and make it more fair across the spectrum, so that people are paying more according to their ability,” Pedersen told Cascade PBS.
Already, there are two legal challenges to block it. One, filed by Let’s Go Washington, is trying to get a referendum on the ballot to ask voters to repeal the law. Another, by the Citizen Action Defense Fund, says the law violates the state constitution.
The Citizen Action Defense Fund includes former state Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, and former State Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge, a Democrat, who said in a press conference last month that he was in favor of tax reform in the state.
“(Talmadge is) in favor of an income tax or reforming the tax code in Washington,” said Jackson Maynard, Executive Director of the Citizen Action Defense Fund. “But the proper way to do it is to amend the Constitution to allow for an income tax, if that's what you want to do. Otherwise, you're stuck with the language that the voters approved and that the court has repeatedly, uphold.”
Pedersen says one of the goals of this bill was explicitly to challenge the decision that income is property.
“That is the question that we're trying to put before the court again, because in the 93 years since that ruling, almost no other court in the country has followed that logic,” Pedersen said.
Wallin says his clients will be keeping a close eye on what happens to the law in the next few years.
“We're going to have a public experiment. We're going to see how many people move for tax purposes. We’ll see if people move. Some people don't think people will move. I already know many people have moved. I know many more who are planning to move,” Wallin said.
Pedersen argued that Washington has not become less competitive – just more in line with 41 other states that have an income tax. He also says the lack of income tax is not the only thing that job creators consider.
“Look, none of this happens in a vacuum, right?” he said.
Pedersen says taxpayers and businesses are also concerned about what the state does with the taxes it collects.”
“Does it then produce a good transportation system that functions well? or a good education system or a strong, early learning system so that people don't have to stay home and can actually go to work, right. All of those things are important to business, too.”
Report shows WA immigration enforcement increased in late 2025
By Jaelynn Grisso, story published 04/30/2026
ICE arrested a man in a Yakima when he approached his car leaving Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve. New data in a report from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights revealed that this is far from an isolated incident.
“What we have now obtained data to show that enforcement in what ICE considers the Seattle area of responsibility – which actually isn't just Seattle, but the whole state of Washington, Oregon and Alaska – that levels of enforcement or arrests surge towards the end of 2025, beginning of 2026, to historic levels," said Angelina Godoy, director of the UW Center for Human Rights. "There were even more arrests in our region during this period than there were at the historic peak in 2012 under Obama.”
The center obtained data through an ongoing lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that shows arrests in the Pacific Northwest. According to that data, ICE made about 250 arrests in late 2024. The number of arrests steadily increased in 2025, reaching a peak of 2,250 arrests in the last three months of the year.
Arrests per month in Washington steadily increased in 2025, from about 100 in January to more than 350 in December. Oregon saw an even sharper spike at the end of the year.
Some areas of Washington saw many more arrests, especially Yakima County where ICE made 180 arrests in 2025. That’s about three times more than the second highest, Franklin County.
Researchers at the center attribute the surge to a relatively new tactic for immigration enforcement we told you about in February, where agents go to areas they consider “target rich,” look up plates using the state Department of Licensing data, then cross-reference that information with DHS data. She says that allowing this use of state data violates the law.
“Washington has the responsibility to comply with Washington state law, including the Keep Washington Working Act of 2019, which specifically bars state agencies, including the DOL, from releasing information or collaborating in the investigation of civil immigration violations. So we're not talking about criminal justice issues. We're not talking about public safety threats,” Godoy said. "We're talking about purely civil immigration arrests. And yet that's what our research has proven that they are doing, and they're doing it on a regular basis, on a daily basis, and people are being pulled out of their cars on our streets as a result of what they're doing, in violation of the law.”
A representative from the Department of Licensing said the agency is not currently speaking publicly about this issue, but noted the agency was asked to file a report on its compliance with state immigration policies and expects to publish it in early June.
Godoy says, ultimately, the responsibility lies with Gov. Bob Ferguson.
“This decision sits with Governor Ferguson. And to his credit, Gov. Ferguson has taken action to limit ICE's access to the DOL database, and that's great," Godoy said. “However, of the 36 arrests that we have confirmed ... 34 were queries made by the Border Patrol. Two were made by ICE. It's great that Gov. Ferguson has taken steps to curtail ICE's access, but they're not the primary offender here. It's the Border Patrol, and the decision rests with him.”
Updates on Beacon Hill affordable housing dream and Edmonds robotics team
By Paris Jackson, story published 04/29/2026
Last September, we introduced you to Dr. Estell Williams and her husband Edwin Lindo, the founders of Estelita’s Library – a social justice library and bookstore in Seattle. They shared with us their plan to build a nearly $28 million affordable housing complex. Last summer, they bought a former auto shop in Beacon Hill to fulfill that dream.
Since we last spoke with them, Lindo tells us they’ve closed on the property next door to their shop, expanding their lot to 12,000 square feet. Lindo says they're close to finalizing an environmental cleanup Lindo says they’re close plan for the property, and plan to then begin cleanup early next year.
In the fall, he says they plan to submit their funding applications to the city, county and state for the bulk of their capital campaign fundraising support. It's their goal to finish the housing project by 2028.
The couple also continues hosting numerous community events on their property, like Math Academies for 3rd through 8th graders on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month. They also plan to soon unveil a free youth summer camp opportunity.
Last March, we caught up with a high school robotics team called Chill Out 1778, in the Edmonds School District. They were competing locally and fundraising for an international competition.
The team’s mentor Steve Winckler says they recently competed at the PNW District Championship, narrowly missing a return trip to the international championship. However, he says the team had an undeniably successful season by engineering one of the highest-performing robots in the team’s history.
But, Winckler says they need the community’s help. The school building where the trained in Lynwood is being demolished and students need a new practice field. Winckler says to reach out to them if you have ideas for a new location in Edmonds, Lynnwood or Mountlake Terrace.
Seattle says gig workers earning more under new pay rules
By Lizz Giordano, story published 04/28/2026
Delivery and gig workers in Seattle are earning significantly more than in the passt according to the city's Office of Labor Standards — the result of new laws requiring workers to receive per-task minimum pay based on mileage and time spent on the job.
During our week of coverage on wage theft last month, we told you about a set of first-of-their-kind ordinances Seattle passed back in 2022, aimed at improving working conditions for app-based delivery workers.
Last week, the Office of Labor Standards released a report looking at how those rules affected pay at the five largest companies in the first 18 months after the ordinances started.
Researchers found that under the minimum wage ordinance, gig workers averaged about $16 an hour, which includes time spent on the app looking for jobs. Average hourly earnings varied widely between the companies, from $12 to $25.
It’s a significant jump from what researchers were seeing before the law passed, when outside studies found some workers earning as little as $3.17 an hour. The report also said tips now make up a smaller percentage of a worker’s overall earnings.
“They're getting more from that minimum payment, so they're less reliant on bonuses and tips. So those are positive things for workers. It again, provides transparency for the workers, it provides predictability for the workers, and workers can focus on doing their job and not have to worry about chasing tips and all the variables that get involved with why people tip and how people tip,” said Steven Marchese, Director of the Seattle Office of Labor Standards.
OLS also found that fees charged by the companies - which make up about 19% of what customers pay - crept up slightly during the study period. It also found that demand for deliveries didn't drop off.
“I think that contradicts some of the reporting that you've heard about. Demand tanking. Can't speak to what happened at individual app companies or with individual businesses, but this is the aggregate information that we have," Marchese said.
DoorDash also released its own report this year on the law’s impact. It claims workers in Seattle actually made 20% less per hour after the ordinance, and that Seattle has become the most expensive city in the country to order a delivery.
Sound Transit mulls delaying Link projects to meet $35 billion gap
By Venice Buhain, published 04/27/2026
Last month, just as the regional public agency celebrated the launch of the Link connection across Lake Washington, the Sound Transit board floated three different scenarios to help the agency take on its $35 billion shortfall over the next two decades.
The scenarios and options were considered at a board retreat in March. Sound Transit Board Chair Dave Somers, who also is the Snohomish County executive, said on April 23 that the board could have a formal proposal on the table in May or June.
Each of the three scenarios indefinitely defers building light rail all the way to Ballard, stopping either at Seattle Center or Smith Cove. Estimated construction costs to build the entire Ballard extension nearly doubled from $12 billion to $20 billion.
One approach would complete the light rail to Everett, Tacoma and West Seattle, though it would also skip one of West Seattle’s three planned stations. It would indefinitely defer building a planned line between Kirkland and Issaquah and a T Line connection to Tacoma Community College. Sound Transit officials say the West Seattle extension, which is scheduled to be completed in 2032, is the project closest to breaking ground next.
The second approach would build a new Kirkland-Issaquah line, and completes the Link light rail to Tacoma and Everett. But West Seattle and the T Line extension to Tacoma Community College would be skipped. Officials say this approach would emphasize regional connectivity.
The third approach would build out some of each planned branch of the regional system, but stop short of planned end points in Tacoma, downtown Everett and Alaska Junction. It would also start construction on the initial phases of the Kirkland-Issaquah line and the T Line extension.
As Sound Transit considers the options, advocates from Ballard, West Seattle, Everett, Tacoma and on the Eastside have all pushed for the agency to finish the light rail lines to their communities.
