Seattle

Debating Minimum Wage In SEATTLE and NEW YORK CITY

Published by Papa Giorgio

So, I debated on whether to add this to our (Chris L. and myself conversation, posted HERE) earlier conversation, but, I decided to post it separately. So, in the same conversation he finally took a jaunt over to my MINIMUM WAGE portion of my ECON 101 page. He still doesn’t know why the minimum wage was used during the Davis/Bacon Act days (a), why the apartheid unions in South Africa used it (b), and why unions here use it and which community it hurts the most (c) — but at least he a c t u a l l y went to my link… and got it all wrong – lol:

…An even more insidious substitution effect of minimum wages can be seen from a few quotations. During South Africa’s apartheid era, racist unions, which would never accept a black member, were the major supporters of minimum wages for blacks. In 1925, the South African Economic and Wage Commission said, “The method would be to fix a minimum rate for an occupation or craft so high that no Native would be likely to be employed.” Gert Beetge, secretary of the racist Building Workers’ Union, complained, “There is no job reservation left in the building industry, and in the circumstances, I support the rate for the job (minimum wage) as the second-best way of protecting our white artisans.” “Equal pay for equal work” became the rallying slogan of the South African white labor movement. These laborers knew that if employers were forced to pay black workers the same wages as white workers, there’d be reduced incentive to hire blacks.

South Africans were not alone in their minimum wage conspiracy against blacks. After a bitter 1909 strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen in the U.S., an arbitration board decreed that blacks and whites were to be paid equal wages. Union members expressed their delight, saying, “If this course of action is followed by the company and the incentive for employing the Negro thus removed, the strike will not have been in vain.”

Our nation’s first minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, had racist motivation. During its legislative debate, its congressional supporters made such statements as, “That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country.” During hearings, American Federation of Labor President William Green complained, “Colored labor is being sought to demoralize wage rates.”

Today’s stated intentions behind the support of minimum wages are nothing like yesteryear’s. However, intentions are irrelevant. In the name of decency, we must examine the effects….

…The white labor unions and other white supremacists lobbied for other regulations which, in effect, prohibited blacks from being hired. These groups demanded that the hiring of blacks and other nonwhites be subject to the same compulsory employer compensation and minimum wage requirements granted to white union members. The intent of such legislation, Williams contends, is obvious. Such labor laws took away the only bar-gaming chip available to the blacks and other non-whites—their willingness to work for a lower wage. Many whites recognized this. In 1925, for example, the report of the Mining Regulations Commission proposed a mandatory system of minimum wages per job “in order to rescue the European miner from the economic fetters which at present render him the easy victim of advancing native competition.”

Contrary to the view accepted by many on the political left, apartheid is not the result of white businessmen attempting to maximize profits by enslaving cheap black labor. It is instead a product of political privilege. Says Williams:

The mere existence of South Africa’s extensive racial regulatory laws is evidence enough that racial privilege is difficult through free market forces. Consider South Africa’s job reservation laws, which mandate that certain jobs be performed by whites only . . . . The presence of job reservation laws suggests that at least some employers would hire blacks in the “white jobs.” The fact that they would hire blacks to do white jobs neither requires nor suggests that these employers be necessarily any less white supremacist than anyone else. It does suggest that those employers who would hire blacks considered such a course of action to be an attractive alternative because blacks were willing to work for lower wages—“uncivilized wages”—than white workers. The business pursuit of profits—which caused employers to be less ardent supporters of the white supremacist doc-trine-has always been the enemy of white privilege. This is why South African white workers resorted to government.

“The whole ugly history of apartheid has been an attack on free markets and the rights of individuals, and a glorification of centralized government power,” Williams concludes. Only when South Africa’s people—black, white, or colored—“de-dare war against centralized government power” will there be genuine progress toward freedom. Walter Williams’ new book provides powerful intellectual ammunition for that war.

  • Matthew B. Kibbe, FEE

(Via AEI)

There is no inherent reason why low-skilled or high-risk employees are any less employable than high-skilled, low-risk employees. Someone who is five times as valuable to an employer is no more or less employable than someone who is one-fifth as valuable, when the pay differences reflect their differences in benefits to the employer.

This is more than a theoretical point. Historically, lower skill levels did not prevent black males from having labor force participation rates higher than that of white males for every US Census from 1890 through 1930. Since then, the general growth of wage-fixing arrangements: minimum wage laws, labor unions, civil service pay scales, etc. has reversed that and made more and more blacks unemployable despite their rising levels of education and skills: absolutely and relative to whites.

And here’s the “money quote”:

In short, no one is employable or unemployable absolutely, but only relative to a given pay scale.

And that highlights the essence of the economic logic that explains why the most vulnerable workers (low-skilled, uneducated, teenagers, etc.) are the group that is most harmed by minimum wage laws — those laws artificially raise the wages of low-skilled workers without increasing their productivity, and therefore significantly reduce their employability relative to higher-skilled workers.

For example, in the study from the team of researchers at the University of Washington on Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage, they reported (emphasis added):

Our preferred estimates suggest that the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance caused hours worked by low-skilled workers (i.e., those earning under $19 per hour) to fall by 9.4% during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13 per hour, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Alternative estimates show the number of low-wage jobs declined by 6.8%, which represents a loss of more than 5,000 jobs.

The work of least-paid workers might be performed more efficiently by more skilled and experienced workers commanding a substantially higher wage.

Bottom Line: Thomas Sowell’s comments illustrate an economic reality that is frequently overlooked: Workers compete against other workers (not employers) to find jobs and get the highest wages. Employers compete against other employers to find the best workers. In other words, low-skilled workers compete against high-skilled workers in the labor market. Low-skilled workers who would be employable at a low wage become unemployable at an artificially higher wage. And that explains the perverse cruelty of minimum wage laws: it inflicts the greatest harm on the very workers it is allegedly designed to help.

However, this is not the reason for this post. I merely wanted to show the hubris out there in stating propaganda (not intentionally, just in ignorance). Here is the portion that that I wanted to highlight and respond to. Here is the video so people can glean context:

So, here are the main points of the above:

  1. Minimum wage is still not $15.00 an hour
  2. It is $13.50 and in 2021 will be $13.69 (which he is right about, but we are talking about SEATTLE)
  3. [QUOTE] “Sean Giordano this is why I & everyone else should dismiss what ever you post. First minute & a half & anyone can prove she’s full of shit” [UNQUOTE]
  4. New York (remember, she said New York CITY) does not have $15.00 minimum wage, they are near $11.80
  5. California isn’t even over %15.00 an hour
  6. THEY ARE FULL OF SHIT!!

So my first response is to points #1 and #2

The Prager U video specifically mentions Seattle and New York City. This is key. I used two websites to find the current minimum wage in Seattle, Washington: MINIMUM-WAGE.ORG and SEATTLE GOVERNEMNT’S website. In the conversation I noted this many times, but granted, I wasn’t clear.

During the long discussion that followed a few paths, what I learned is that franchises are all included together as a large business. So if I were to franchise, say, The Brass Tap (bar/restaurant chain focuses mostly on its craft beer offerings), if the franchises nationwide have 501 employees, the tips earned do not lower the to $13.50. To make the point clearer I made a crude version:

A sad article of sorts was this one detailing the info:

Justices Reject Franchise Appeal Over Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage (May 2, 2016)

SEATTLE — The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage from franchise owners who say the law discriminates against them by treating them as large businesses.

Seattle was one of the first cities in the nation to adopt a law aiming for a $15 minimum wage, giving small businesses employing fewer than 500 people seven years to phase it in. Large employers must do so over three or four years, depending on whether they offer health insurance to their employees.

Five franchises and the International Franchise Association sued the city, saying the law treats Seattle’s 623 franchises like large businesses because they are part of multistate networks. But the franchises say they are small businesses and should have more time to phase in the higher wage.

[….]

“Seattle’s ordinance is blatantly discriminatory and affirmatively harms Seattle hard-working franchise small business owners every day since it has gone into effect,” Robert Cresanti said in a statement. “We are simply attempting to level the playing field for the 600 local franchise business owners employing 19,000 people in Seattle.”….

Remember, Seattle has a higher minimum wage than the rest of the state.

I likewise responded to points #4 thus

This comes from the NEW YORK CITY GOVERNMENTS website:

The minimum wage in New York City is $15.00 per hour. The New York State Department of Labor oversees wage regulations in New York State. Businesses employing people in New York State should be aware of wage requirements and regulations.

After December 31, 2019, all employees in New York City must be paid at least $15.00 per hour. …

#5 deals with California as a state

However, just like New York state/New York City and Washington state/Seattle, so to goes California. There are many cities in California that have differing minimum wage laws than the state. Here is just one example (click to enlarge):

So, there are a couple numbers not dealt with yet…

they are numbers #3 and #6

  • #3 [QUOTE] “Sean Giordano this is why I & everyone else should dismiss what ever you post. First minute & a half & anyone can prove she’s full of shit” [UNQUOTE]

If the opposite of Chris L’s premise is in fact shown, and if his position is “true” of me — that is: “why I & everyone else should dismiss what ever you post.” Why should I, or we, not dismiss whatever he says. I mean, he is full of shit (#6!!).

Later in the conversation discussion about the effects of minimum wage hurting restaurants, to which Chris posted the following:

I merely responded with

  • The hospitality group, which lobbies on behalf of the restaurant and hotel industry, concluded that Seattle was the hardest-hit city in Washington state, with 624 bars and bistros that have permanently shut down. (BLOG.RESTUARANT)  

So, if 29 opened up DESPITE minimum wage and covid… would the 624 be closed BECAUSE of the minimum wage and covid?

 

Seattle Government’s Racist Cult Orthodoxy

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager reads through an article from my favorite Journal, the only one I get via mail on political commentary, THE CITY JOURNAL. And the caller at the end made my day:

Here is a key portion of the article:

Last month, the City of Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights sent an email inviting “white City employees” to attend a training session on “Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness,” a program designed to help white workers examine their “complicity in the system of white supremacy” and “interrupt racism in ways that are accountable to Black, Indigenous and People of Color.” Hoping to learn more, I submitted a public records request for all documentation related to the training. The results are disturbing.

At the beginning of the session, the trainers explain that white people have internalized a sense of racial superiority, which has made them unable to access their “humanity” and caused “harm and violence” to people of color. The trainers claim that “individualism,” “perfectionism,” “intellectualization,” and “objectivity” are all vestiges of this internalized racial oppression and must be abandoned in favor of social-justice principles. In conceptual terms, the city frames the discussion around the idea that black Americans are reducible to the essential quality of “blackness” and white Americans are reducible to the essential quality of “whiteness”—that is, the new metaphysics of good and evil.

Once the diversity trainers have established this basic conceptual framework, they encourage white employees to “practice self-talk that affirms [their] complicity in racism” and work on “undoing [their] own whiteness.” As part of this process, white employees must abandon their “white normative behavior” and learn to let go of their “comfort,” “physical safety,” “social status,” and “relationships with some other white people.” As writer James Lindsay has pointed out, this is not the language of human resources; it is the language of cult programming—persuading members they are defective in some predefined manner, exploiting their emotional vulnerabilities, and isolating them from previous relationships.

It’s important to point out that this “interrupting whiteness” training is not an anomaly. In recent years, nearly every department of Seattle city government has been recruited into the ideological fight against “white supremacy.” As I have documented, the city’s homelessness agency hosted a conference on how to “decolonize [their] collective work”; the school system released a curriculum explaining that “math is a tool for oppression”; and the city-owned power company hired a team of bureaucrats to fight “structural racism” within their organization. Dozens of private companies now offer diversity training to public agencies. The idea that all whites have unconscious, “implicit bias” that they must vigilantly program themselves to overcome has become an article of faith across corporate boardrooms, academia, and law-enforcement agencies, even though the premise is unscientific and impossible to verify.

The endgame is to make Seattle’s municipal government the arbiter of the new orthodoxy, and then work outward. At the end of the session on “internalized racial superiority,” the diversity trainers outline strategies for converting outsiders and recommend specific “practices for interrupting others’ whiteness.” In effect, the activists have organized an ideological pyramid scheme—using public dollars to establish their authority within the government, then using that authority to recruit others into the program. As Lindsay writes, “the goal is no longer to indoctrinate on what is ‘rightthink’ and ‘wrongthink.’ It is to make the [subject’s] thinking be completely in line with the view of the world described by the cult doctrine.”….

White employees were informed that their so-called ‘white’ qualities were offensive and unacceptable.

The MSM Painting C.H.A.Z. As “a Street Fair” (LOL)

Published by Papa Giorgio

An MSNBC reporter made the mistake of calling the CHAZ CHOP takeover of a portion of downtown Seattle a “street festival”, and that did not go over with the protesters there at all (RIGHT SCOOP):

Here are some stories cataloged by NEWSBUSTERS:

Going through some stuff today on the interwebs… I came across a destruction of this Tweet by Oliver Darcy (senior media reporter for CNN).

This is CNN at their best — in other words, all about #FakeNews. Here are some Tweets by Cassandra Fairbanks calling out the baseness of CNN’s Darcy:

 

And Zach Vorhies has the Warlord of C.H.A.Z (some are now calling it CHOP) running guns from his Tesla. LOLZ… Tesla… he is a “green” warlord. And Andy Ngo also has some weaponry to share… before their Tweets however, lets quote GATEWAY PUNDIT’S story a bit:

…On Thursday CNN political reporter Oliver Darcy, who defended the anarchist Seattle Autonomous Zone, published a hit piece on conservative publishers including The Gateway Pundit.

Oliver Darcy, whose primary purpose at the network is to silence conservative voices, published a hit piece on The Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, and others. Darcy insisted there were no armed Antifa members in CHAZ — the antifa automous zone in Seattle….

I also wanted to pass along a longer video documenting some of the sugar coating by the media of what is going on up in Seattle. BUT FIRST, I always preface anything by Paul Joseph Watson and some others with this:

  • While I like their rants (Paul Watson, Mark Dice, and others) and these commentaries hold much truth in them, I do wish to caution you… he is part of Info Wars/Prison Planet and Summit News network of yahoos, a crazy conspiracy arm of Alex Jones shite. Also, I bet if I talked to him he would reveal some pretty-crazy conspiratorial beliefs that would naturally undermine and be at-odds-with some of his rants. Just to be clear, I do not endorse these people or orgs.

The video was found over at MOONBATTERY’S site, who notes: “Seattle is our short-term future unless pushback against the liberal establishment and the mob it has mobilized gets serious quickly. The medium-term future will be totalitarian.”

 

 

Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Free Zone” <"Petoria">

Published by Papa Giorgio

First, for the humor:

By the way, I just wish to note that the Leftist MSM and the Leftist politicians like to say that “Right Wing” organizations (most are really Left-Wing orgs, but that is neither here nor there) want to secede and are “anti-government.” However — like with all the other items I could list, it is actually Lefties that attempt it. I think it is hilarious. Here is ANDY NGO keeping us in the loop, with a hat-tip to GATEWAY PUNDIT:

RIGHT SCOOP has the latest video from PROJECT VERITAS and the main point of this installment is that they want to secede fully from America. Here is a bit from RS and then the video:

“We believe in complete abolition of the system…” – O’Keefe undercover video shows Antifa militia group in North Carolina ….. James O’Keefe is out with a new video that shows how one of his agents infiltrated an Antifa-ish militant group in Shelby, North Carolina ….The group is called Redneck revolt and they were among the groups at Charlotteville in 2017. The undercover journalist explains that they are the militia wing of Antifa, adding “they are Antifa in that they share the Antifa ideology.”

[….]

While we’re on the topic of Antifa, here’s a clip from Lara Logan that you might find interesting on how organized they are and how they stay one step ahead of police:

Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it rhymes. Which leads us back to the earliest parts of our founding as a nation… we had to realize that socialism didn’t work… at all. These radical fascists in their “Capital Hill Free Zone” are learning the same lesson. Here is my Facebook post, with media added in here for easier viewing.

Hat-tips to WEASEL ZIPPERS and TWITCHY and me (RPT):

Jamestown too was first a socialist society where each produced according to his ability and received according to his need which, of course, affected supply. One cannot divide what does not exist. Our textbooks tell us that only one of twelve survived the first two years for precisely the same reason, starvation.

PRAGER U OPINES

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up! GATEWAY PUNDIT:

Antifa domestic terrorists set up an “autonomous zone” in six square blocks in Seattle this week.

On Tuesday “Free Capitol Hill” the antifa “Autonomous Zone” released its list of demands from the Seattle and Washington State governments.

The list includes reparations, ending the police and free stuff — pretty much what you would expect from a bunch of illiterate leftie kids.

The “police free zone” is a perfect utopia of free love, free food, free water and no police!

Until the anarchists ran out of food.

One of the Antifa organizers in Seattle, an 18-year-old lesbian anarchist who wants to “abolish whiteness, capitalism, and civilization,” begged for vegan meats and soy after the homeless people they invited in took all the food.

“The homeless people we invited took away all the food at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.”

“We need more food to keep the area operational. Please if possible bring vegan meat substitutes, fruits, oats, soy products, etc. – anything to help us eat.”

ECONOMICS 101 is easier to learn by intuition rather than the hard way. The longer this is allowed however, the crazier it will get: Andy again:

Seattle Crane Collapse (Tragic)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Sad

LIVELEAK:

New video shows the moment a crane collapsed in South Lake Union Saturday afternoon. Four people were killed when part of a crane from the construction site of a future Google building fell onto traffic below. 

Scott Gaines was on his way to work when the dashcam in his car captured the collapse.

The Seattle Fire Department said one woman and three men were dead before the first firefighters arrived at the scene. Seattle Public University confirmed that freshman student Sarah Wong was one of the victims.

Emergency crews responded to the scene at Mercer Street and Fairview Avenue in the South Lake Union neighborhood around 3:30 p.m. 

“It’s a horrible day in Seattle when something like this happens right in the heart of our city,” Mayor Jenny Durkan said. “Most people have driven down this road at some time in their lives. But it’s a time when we come together because Seattle is a city that rallies around each other.”

Several people told KING 5 that they witnessed crews working to dismantle the crane earlier in the day.

The Washington state Department of Labor and Industries is leading an investigation into the cause of the crane collapse.

Tim Church, a spokesperson for Labor and Industries, confirmed investigations into four companies: GLY Construction, subcontractors Northwest Tower Crane and Omega Morgan, and Morrow Equipment Company.

Half of the cranes in the state of Washington are in Seattle.

“Suspect” Is Now “Community Member” |Law Enforcement|

Published by Papa Giorgio

(BTW, I was on the other end at one point in my life… I was a suspect)

This is for all my law enforcement readers… this stuff is just crazy! Via LAW OFFICER:

When Seattle police officers write use of force reports they no longer call a suspect a suspect.

“Community member” is the new term. Several officers say the term is offensive, explaining their work with violent suspects.

Sources point to the suspect who shot three officers last month after a downtown Seattle armed robbery. When officers involved in that incident were writing their use of force reports they were required to refer to the shooter, Damarius Butts, as a “community member,” not a suspect, police sources said.

Police fatally shot Butts after they said he shot the officers.

[….]

The online use of force reporting system, called Blue Team, is used for more than just use of force reports and while the terminology changed for multiple forms, it’s only in the use of force reports that officers find offensive.

One commenter said this:

  • As a former Chief there is no way I would ask, order, demand, expect, or permit my officers to use the term “community member” when writing any report. I would also refuse any such request from any civilian who happened to be an elected official and then try to educate them that using such terminology is an insult to all members of the community since using the term in the manner requested suggests every citizen has committed a criminal act or is a criminal. Besides, what if this “suspect” was from out of town? Since they were not a “Community Member” would they then be labeled a “suspect” which would then indicate discriminatory bias on the part of the city?

MOOBATTERY says this:

….They were going to use the word “citizen” to describe suspected criminals, but that would discriminate against illegal aliens, who comprise a high percentage of criminals I mean “community members” in most cities. Says Seattle Police Chief Operating Officer Brian Maxey, “we don’t know or inquire about citizenship status, so labeling someone a citizen is arbitrary.”

After the community members have found their way to prison, they continue to be referred to with euphemisms:

Last fall, the Washington Department of Corrections stopped calling inmates “offenders” and instead use the term “student.”

“The term ‘offender’ does have a negative connotation and significantly impacts a broad group of people and communities,” Acting DOC Secretary Dick Morgan wrote in an internal department memo, obtained by KIRO 7.

When the terms “community member” and “student” are no longer regarded as sufficiently obsequious toward criminals, the Newspeak Dictionary will need to be updated again. Maybe they will be called SPORSes, or Special Persons Oppressed by the Racist System.

Another example of Newspeak.

Businesses Forced To Hurt The Poor ~ Thanks Dems

Published by Papa Giorgio

As the #FightFor15 movement get fast food workers to strike in order to get a $15, and they watch businesses in Seattle closing because of the forced raise in wages. Automated cashier options are now an option to be weighed. Of course a business wants a human face to represent it. But the business wants to stay in business, so many are being forced to choose a cheaper, more sustainable option for its budget.

McDonald’s is buying 7,000 automated machines to replace people

Would you like some microchips with that burger? McDonald’s Europe strikes another blow against human interaction by installing 7,000 touch-screen computers to take your order and money.

[….]

McDonalds recently went on a hiring binge in the U.S., adding 62,000 employees to its roster. The hiring picture doesn’t look quite so rosy for Europe, where the fast food chain is drafting 7,000 touch-screen kiosks to handle cashiering duties.

And this real world affect of what politicians can merely raise taxes to meet budgets with (or, on the Federal level just print more money [a dumb move BTW]) is that small business go out of business, thus affecting the poor who want jobs.

But now the option through technology is to replace workers for businesses altogether:

(Washington Policy Center) Everyone is predicting what the real world impact of Seattle’s newly passed $15 minimum wage will be.  The truth is there will not be a mass exodus of businesses from the city, nor will the economy crash.

Certainly, some businesses will move or close down, consumers will pay more, some workers will receive fewer benefits and the lowest skilled workers will have a harder time finding a job because they are competing with more experienced workers. 

But many businesses will simply figure out how to employ fewer low-wage workers.  They will do that by substituting machines and technology for people.

Service industry CEOs have cautioned a higher minimum wage is “encouraging automation,” which can improve efficiency.  Even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warns that a higher minimum wage would “encourage labor substitution” and incentivize employers to “buy machines and automate things” and ultimately “cause job destruction.”

He’s right. When government increases the cost of labor, employers find other ways to save money. 

Just look at how McDonald’s has responded to France’s $12 an hour minimum wage.  In 2011, McDonald’s invested in 7,000 touch screen computers in France to reduce the number of workers needed.  Restaurants around the country are already exploring automation as a means to cut costs; Applebee’s is installing 100,000 tabletop tablets for ordering and payments.

Many food businesses are considering a machine that can freshly grind, shape and custom grill 360 gourmet burgers per hour, no human labor needed.   Alpha, the burger-making robot, can even slice and dice the pickles and tomatoes, put them on the burger, add condiments and wrap it up.  The manufacturer makes the point that cashiers or servers aren’t even needed: “Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window.”  The maker says Alpha will pay for itself in a year. 

…read it all…

Environmentally Smart Seattle an Excellent Example of the Failure of Green Politics/Stimulus

Published by Papa Giorgio

This from Gateway Pundit:

Part of that plan was to dump millions into poor inner city neighborhoods to weatherize homes and create jobs. Now we know that two years later the program was a complete bust. …But it was successful in redistributing cash from American producers to the inner city.

KOMO reported:

Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.

McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.

But more than a year later, Seattle’s numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.

“The jobs haven’t surfaced yet,” said Michael Woo, director of Got Green, a Seattle community organizing group focused on the environment and social justice.

“It’s been a very slow and tedious process. It’s almost painful, the number of meetings people have gone to. Those are the people who got jobs. There’s been no real investment for the broader public.”