The Washington Policy Center published a report January 2021 which detailed the travel destinations of the truck rental company U-Haul. The article showed that Washington had fallen from coveted number five spot as most desired place to live all the way down to number 36. That position of unpopularity is not as bad as California’s, at number 50, but it is a long way from top-ranked Tennessee, Texas and Florida as the most-sought destinations for one-way U-Haul movers.

The latest US Census numbers confirm that trend and show a decline of 20,000 in the King County population. The Seattle Times picked up on the declining population trend and is reporting that similar declines are seen in other large metropolitan areas. The opposite is true though for areas with cheaper cost of living, lower taxes and less business regulation. As an example, the Seattle Times reports that Maricopa County in Arizona has seen strong growth, driven by a more conducive environment for business and residents.

While the pandemic has had an effect on population growth and decline, the exodus from King County is primarily driven by polices enacted by the Seattle City Council which have a large effect on the region.

• The $15 minimum wage, where the negative effects were demonstrated no more clearly than in Seattle. The rash of restaurant closures and lost jobs can be attributed, in many cases, directly to the additional fiscal cost the minimum wage increases have caused.
• Hazzard pay for the pandemic which Seattle residents saw store closures and jobs eliminated when the Seattle City Council voted to add an additional $4 per hour during a state of emergency.
• Vaccine passports which have had a dramatic and negative financial effect on the service and hospitality industry in King County.
• Lack of leadership from the Seattle City Council dealing with and in some cases, encouraging homelessness in Seattle.
• Payroll taxes that target successful businesses that are encouraging good paying jobs to leave the area.

The good news is, all of this can be fixed with a change in policy and an un-doing of the regressive taxes and polices that are currently in place. Washington is a beautiful place to live, our government should be working to make it affordable and attractive to business to want to be here.

The policies that are negatively impacting the region need to be repealed before it’s too late.