Is the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington) a nice place or a shithole?

There's package thieves everywhere!

went to college in Bellingham WA. I found it depressing esp. in the winter and the summers were unpredictable. Overall couldn't wait to get back to Midwest. Some LOVE it!

Northern California will fall under the Pacific NorthWest.

It's fantastic OP. The West Coast is very diverse contrary to what many East coasters think.

Isn't that where that Bundy ranch person is? The right wing "NO GOVERNMENT ON MAH LAND" guy?

Gorgeous summers, easy access to a whole lot of natural wonders, hiking, kayaking, climbing, whitewater rafting, lakes, Puget Sound, national parks, beaches, more. But grey, overcast, and drizzly in winter, sometimes to the point of depressing. Solid blue in the cities; solid red in the rural areas; mixed bag in the suburbs.

[quote]Isn't that where that Bundy ranch person is? The right wing "NO GOVERNMENT ON MAH LAND" guy?

No. They drove to that Oregon site but they're no longer there since the siege ended. Cliven, the patriarch, lives in Nevada. Ammon, the leader of the Oregon takeover, lives in Arizona.

Um go read about Seattle freeze ..the people are weird as fuck

The homelessness problem is rather dreary here. I understand it's worse in Portland because they have no sales tax so the stuff that they can manage to buy with their panhandled loot is much cheaper for them.

I'm far from a Trumpkin, but I find the knee-jerk left-wing collective reaction here a bit more than I can take often.

The thing I love about it most here is that it is incredibly literate. Everybody reads, including the much-maligned millennials.

Years ago, the local alternative paper ran a feature story about how difficult it was to be a straight girl in Seattle, as the straight men were so incredibly immature. My first thought was that it was all of the men not just the straight ones. They received so much follow up mail from women about their stories as well that they had to run a sequel! The idea of dating from Seattle men is "Well, I usually hang out at such-and-such a place in the evenings after dinner, if you ever come by there and see me maybe you can say hi and we'll have a drink or something."

The three men I dated while in college in WA state all eventually married women, so there's that. Two didn't even remember me when I so mistakenly reached out to them when Facebook first hit the scene!. Oh well they were fun including a real live logger

Life is what you make it, OP. I lived there for two years during the grunge era. Mild winters, pleasant summers. Lots of water and pine trees...

The rest is up to you.

No income tax in Washington - the only left-wing state without one other than Nevada.

Yes, Mary OP, the two poles of "nice place" and "shithole" are certainly your only options in this case.

I hated Seattle. Liked Portland.

[quote]Years ago, the local alternative paper ran a feature story about how difficult it was to be a straight girl in Seattle, as the straight men were so incredibly immature. My first thought was that it was all of the men not just the straight ones. They received so much follow up mail from women about their stories as well that they had to run a sequel!

Lived there, and this is completely true. A straight guy who isn't a tech bro or a giant manchild, and who has moderate social skills, could write his own ticket with women.

Do you mean no state (sales) tax, r11? There's income tax everywhere.

In Delaware there's no state sales tax.

No state income tax, R15. Washington has a sales tax but no state income tax. Oregon has a state income tax but no sales tax.

R15 - there are seven states without an income tax.. Washington is one. The interesting thing about Washington is they make up for no income tax with other taxes. Turns out Washington has the most regressive tax system in the country- on a percent of income basis it hits the poor the hardest. The poorest 20% pay 16.9% of their income to the state. The top 1% pay 2.8% of their income.

[quote] Lived there, and this is completely true. A straight guy who isn't a tech bro or a giant manchild, and who has moderate social skills, could write his own ticket with women.

Unfortunately most of them aren't and they're dragging the curve down for gay guys as well.

And Washington state has had an income tax on the ballot more than once and it gets voted down every time. People really do vote against their own interests. It's a great place to retire, though, because of that problem. Even better, retire to Vancouver, WA and get the benefit of shopping in Portland, with no sales tax, and living in Washington, with no income tax.

I live in Minnesota so I’m sure it’s heaven.

A recommendation. I'm in the Midwest, and this Christmas has a pleasant blanket of snow, and full sun! But the Pacific Northwest has always fascinated me. I read this book a long time ago, and it set me up to be seriously intrigued ever since.

The rain year is from October to April, roughly. This year hasn't been too bad, but last year it rained for like a record 96 days straight or something. On average though, it is rainy but not terrible. Summers are usually pretty dry and mild.

I would say west of the Cascades, the state is rather blue, but east of the mountains is more red.

Homelessness is pretty bad. Portland definitely, but even smaller towns are being affected. Drugs have always been an issue. The I-5 corridor from Canada to Mexico brings in a bunch of crap.

Like the person said above, life is what you make it. I am an Oregonian through and through and have seen some good and bad changes. There is so much backlash now in Portland especially, because so many people have moved there. Infrastructure and housing have not kept up with demand.

Snowed here, too. Roads are clear, but a white Xmas on the grass/lawns.

R23 I'm jealous. I'm Norwegian and all the snow literally rained away on the 23rd. I can literally see the grass now :( It's like this every year though, we usually get a warm period right before Christmas. Then it gets colder again in January/February. We usually don't have much snow in November and December.

In Seattle, Christmas week is often the time for below average temperatures and snow. We're running about 10 degrees below normal (35F/2C) during the day, when that is about the lowest it usually gets overnight in winter.

The cloud cover hangs low in the late fall through spring and it drizzles a lot. Umbrellas are useless since the winds off the Pacific turn them inside out anytime it actually rains a full rain. There’s very little light in a typical winter. Seattleites take regular sunbreaks to Hawaii and Mexico in the winter to counteract the wet winter gloom.

For reasons such as a parent still living, the delusion of 'the grass is always greener,' the convenience of local shops all being within walking distance, the building I own my condo in having superior property management, the weather [I enjoy the grey soul less Winter, I remain here in Seattle: Third Tier Hamlet of a Shithole. I coined that phrase. Whilst I will leave it to others to come forward with factual reminiscences, I relate this story personally. As in I was fucking there. I worked at University of Washington Medical Center. December 2011, it was to the best of my knowledge. We had one of those Winter days that starts out normal enough and by sundown there was maybe one and a half inches of accumulated snow on the ground. Since it doesn't snow often enough to invest in the kind of snow clearing equipment that would effectively keep things under control [BUT the Disgraced Mayoress a Murray shit out over a million dollars of taxpayer money so the homeless drug addicts can live fashionably and bicyclists, who pay nothing in taxes, can noob down empty bicycle lanes that streak through downtown]. There is a large pedestrian island where the Metro buses drop off and pick up passengers. That traffic island was packed like the boat deck of RMS Titanic when one boat, collapsible D - 40 spaces for 1500 people - began loading. Of course the bus drivers did the best they could, but it was still a heaving mess to get your normal bus at the normal time and be home on schedule. What beggars belief, and please DLers, please comment on this if I'm out of line or just lead a too-sheltered life. NOT ONE single occupancy vehicle stopped at the pedestrian island, where the driver shouted, "I'M DRIVING TO FREMONT AND HAVE AVAILABILITY FOR FOUR PASSENGERS!" Not ONE car! I reckon in other cities, at a time of transportation crisis like this, drivers who have room in their cars are required by law to stop and offer transportation to the bus riders slowly morphing into rigor mortis. Despite my weaving positive affirmations about Seattle into my daily thoughts, I fucking hate Seattle, I fucking hate its self-congratulatory pissy look down your nose at everyone and everything. The ooze-making political correctness. The abject hypocrisy permeating the very stinking air I breathe. I'll close this, my most truthful batch of words about Seattle I'll prolly ever compose, by saying that if this type of poisonous line of thought was shilling through my brain, I'd immediately think Mr. Blood Sugar is at it again, and stop what I'm doing and make some instant oatmeal. But instant oatmeal will not make the horror that Seattle has become go away.

I'd say that the most horrific thing about Seattle is that's it's the home of that toxic monster known as "Amazon".

Weather: if you like mild weather, it's paradise. Summers are gorgeous. The grey does get a bit depressing after awhile but most smart PNW folks take at least one vacay mid winter to a sunny climate...for the gays, it's mostly weekends to Palm Springs, San Diego and Puerto Vallarta and longer stays in Hawaii.

Homelessness is bad. Due to a strong economy and that mild winter we get homeless people who COME here plus the boom economy and rising rents/home values are creating a lot of new homeless.

There are a lot of drug deaths but if you don't hang around druggie types and avoid walking barefoot near where junkies drop their used needles, it shouldn't be a problem for the average person.

There is a moody insanity to living in the PNW. Twin Peaks is sorta real in the sense that all this darkness manifests itself with some fucked up people. Too much brooding and introspection leads to madness.

I have no idea what R27 wrote.

[quote]I reckon in other cities, at a time of transportation crisis like this, drivers who have room in their cars are required by law to stop and offer transportation to the bus riders slowly morphing into rigor mortis.

You would be wrong. No other city has any kind of law like this, nor would the behavior at any other major city be any different.

Downtown Portland is indisputably a shithole. Swarming with schizos and crackheads. Homeless sleeping on the sidewalks in tents or just sleeping bags. It makes SF's Tenderloin on its worst day look pristine.

Even as little as five, six years ago, one never encountered the homeless tents now littering the city. It has been with the passage of legal weed, coupled with the region's comparatively mild climate, that has brought even more dirt into the city.

Walk along Third and Pike/Pine in downtown Seattle: for survival you'll either avoid eye contact, hold your breath, or dodge all encounters to avoid being sickened or shanked.

I now use Uber to get from point to point in my commute/business meetings in downtown Seattle rather than taxis. Many Uber drivers have shared they no longer drive Seattle taxis, yet alone work downtown Seattle Uber routes Friday and Saturday nights for fear of their lives, stating those who use taxis at night are 'animals.' (All-cash transactions and no way to track said 'animals.') Instead they've chosen to limit their Friday / Saturday night Seattle Uber runs to airport pick ups and drop offs for the same reason.

White liberals ruin everything.

I hope you're not thinking of moving there. That region has a history of massive earthquakes, magnitude 9+. In the next quake (which already overdue and which will definitely be followed by a tsunami), everything west of I-5 will be destroyed, and/or underwater. You wouldn't have 15 minutes to live.

R19 - just out of curiosity was the ballot measure revenue neutral? Meaning the implementation of the income tax had to be combined with an equal reduction in other taxes and fees?

Third between Pike and Pine has always been a strangely isolated ghetto block in the midst of downtown.

While some people might not consider them a part of the Pacific Northwest, Spokane and Boise for your consideration

R33 Mary....please. Your paranoia is running amuck.

I've lived here for 17 years and the block between Pike & Pine on Third has ALWAYS been a cacophony of urban life but since it's really the only moderately "crazy" block in the city, you might unclench your overly pursed anus. It's not THAT bad....annoying, yes but it's not exactly the inner city of Baltimore.

Tell us about PNW pole and hole.

I was in Spokane for a couple days and I found it rather pleasant - a less yuppified version of Portland. But I don't know how it would be to live long term. Might feel a little too small. Are there jobs there?

How about some of the non-Portland Oregon towns like Bend or Salem?

I'm dying to leave PHX so it's hard to imagine anything up there can be worse.

[quote]Is the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington) a nice place or a shithole?

Yup, just like Haiti.

Do you have money? Like most places, the NW can be wonderful if you have the money to do it right. Likewise, if you're poor most of the places / people you'll find yourself around will be shitty.

Are you from the UK, R27?

I think it is soulless. The whole PNW. Vancouver, Canada, too.

A shithole. I didn't use a toilet the whole time I lived there. I didn't even wipe my ass, and no one noticed.

I've never understood that block in downtown Seattle, it's sort of like an anti-oasis. Really though it's just one side of one block, with the rest of downtown Seattle being fairly normal. I don't go out much at night myself, but I don't think that taking a cab on a Friday or Saturday evening would be all that bad. Surely, there must be people going from downtown hotels to other places and such?

We’re a big deal in Portland.

R39 - Hey, Gorgeous - The family is talking about the PNW; we're not talking about Baltimore.

DL family - Once the sun sets, avoid downtown Seattle's Third Avenue, in its entirety. Period.

[quote]Is the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington) a nice place or a shithole?

Well, it's no Dominican Republic but, yes, there are too many you-know-whats there.

Why can't we get more people asking about nice places? Like Utah or North Dakota, the Munich and Vienna of our Homeland?

That neighborhood by Montlake Palyfield looks really sweet. (On Google maps checking things out...)

True story that is very telling re: how depressing Seattle is. Some years back, a major tech company located in the Lake Union tech corridor area opted to hire an on site grief counselor rather than relocate from the scenic setting they enjoyed near the Burke Gilman Trail. The regular sight of people jumping from a nearby bridge and plopping into the water was clearly visible to many in the office, and it had everyone on edge.

Whoa, R51. I recall that news (mid 2000s). Hmmm, let's see . . . major tech company . . . Lake Union . . . was it Getty Images . . . Adobe?

(I can 'see' the campus, along the canal; but I cannot recall the name of the company.)

Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest

I've been to Seattle, it is a shithole.

Seattle is where women move to find manly men.

Seatt-hole is where dreams go to die.

We moved from NYC three years ago to the eastide of Seattle. The city absolutely depressed me but I love living on the water and summers are beautiful here. Lots of $$$$ on the east side...

@R57 - Yes, I love downtown Kirkland. I-520 to Central Way is beautiful and expensive.

Reaction to a proposed Seattle business tax for housing and homeless services jolted elected officials this week as flare-ups of opposition revealed deep frustration with the city’s handling of its homelessness crisis.

If Seattle City Council members were surprised by the reaction — including a raucous town-hall meeting in Ballard and an unexpected protest by construction workers — the response of many residents and business owners seemed to be, what took you so long? “

--------------------

They're woke as hell, until they have to pay for it.

That was a hilarious biased op-ed, R54. Seattle has its share of problems, as does every large city, but what quickly becomes clear is that that author is just your typical right-wing idiot, for whom facts are irrelevant. This is a guy who also wrote, "CNN Thinks that Socialism is Cool. My Grandparents from the USSR Would Disagree." Or who in May of 2016, seriously asked the question, "Would President Trump be a science guy?" His dig at the minimum wage law was, of course, total bullshit. He cherry-picked one bit of data from one study and ignored the other studies that contradicted his views. And all he's talking about doing is moving across the lake to Bellevue or Redmond. They can have him.

The real problem with Seattle is that the massive influx and growth of high-tech companies and jobs has raised housing prices all over the city. It's San Francisco, part 2.

Ex in-laws are from there. Beautiful scenery in the western halves of OR and WA. OR is a bit sunnier than WA. Both would be nice places but the hipsterization of both Seattle and Portland have ruined both. Aggressive homelessness and drugs are the main issues. Permeates everything. WA especially Tacoma northward can be gloomy and NOT for people with any kind of seasonal depression issues, there’s no sun EVER.

Looking rather inviting at the moment.....

It's not my favourite part of the US. If I was American I'd want to live in New England. It was so beautiful there. The friendliest people I ever met in the States were in Texas.

As much as it pisses me off just how long Seattle leadership was asleep at the wheel as the city went into this boom cycle, at this stage, the tax is needed. At this point, residents are basically paying the likes of Amazon to operate in the city, which is a bit fucked up. Anyhoo, just like other boom cycles, this one will come to an end and who knows, we might get another Ted Bundy or Nirvana out of it!

R62 111 degrees? Holy crap, hope you have a nice muumuu to keep your vagina from baking in the heat.

Portland is a blue collar manufacturing rust belt city that hasn't fallen flat on its face yet, probably because companies like Nike and Addidas figured out early how to sound liberal while getting by on third world slave labor. Strippers and white proletarians dominate. It's what the midwest would be if they hadn't had their guts wrenched out by decades of recession. Seattle is filled with libertarian assholes. All the smaller cities like Spokane and Medford are tight little enclaves where everybody knows everybody else.

Bellingham's burbs are breathtaking, and the city gets no small amount of Canadian tourism.

R60 he may be annoying but he’s right, history has shown the ultimate failure everywhere of high minimum wages and high tax-spend, price/rent control policies. Enjoy the needles, feces, and denial of your basic property rights. Hope you don’t work for the city, they can go bankrupt you know. Neighborhoods and cities go downhill all the time, but people get especially pissed when they go uphill, why?

[quote]Bellingham's burbs are breathtaking

Isn't Bellingham too small to have "burbs?"

Oh, bullshit, R60. $15 isn't a particularly high minimum wage, particularly for a city like Seattle. And history has rather clearly shown the opposite: that minimum wages aren't even remotely a problem.

As for "price/rent control policies," that's not Seattle, nor am I having a problem with "needles, feces, and denial of my basic property rights." Are you really this stupid or are you just playing stupid on DL?

Yes, R68. It's got something like 90,000 residents.

This person makes a good point that moderate climate has more to do with the explosion of homeless: "Did it ever occur to you that moderate climates may have something to do with the problems experienced by these cities being greater than elsewhere. After all why would a homeless want to go to Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska or some other god awful cold as hell place when it's usually fairly moderate out west. I don't it has anything to do with whether the governments are democratic or republican as I'm sure the homeless would still be with us even if the council was mostly republican."

Chuckanut Drive into Bellingham

[quote] And history has rather clearly shown the opposite: that minimum wages aren't even remotely a problem.

Certainly less and less a problem

R73, automation is happening regardless of the minimum wage. Adjusted for inflation, the national minimum wage is 25% less than it was at its peak. And yet we're still seeing automation. So much for that talking point.

Next?

R69 - no I’m not stupid, it’s called Econ 101 which you probably wouldn’t pass - minimum wages only serve to deny employment to unskilled, semi-skilled most minority young people. Oh, and it is a form a price control, a floor that produces a surplus of unemployed people willing to work for less but can’t. The EITC is a much better policy tool BUT unions don’t like it because they like to negotiate contracts tied to a high minimum wage. Democrats will do whatever the Unions tell them. Enjoy your taxes, they’re going up...

Dear r75, there are more advanced courses than Econ 101, none of which you would pass, as your overly-simplistic explanation is contradicted by the available data, particularly in Seattle and San Francisco, where unemployment is at record low levels despite the increase in the minimum wage. Our dear little friend in that op-ed had to ignore a shitload of data to try to pretend that raising the minimum wage in Seattle had any harmful effects.

So how about Seattle food businesses? As the linked blog post notes, the number of Seattle Food Businesses has been rising steadily. And that's in spite of something that is a legitimate concern in Seattle: rising housing and rent prices. The businesses aren't closing and the jobs aren't disappearing.

[quote]“As mentioned before, I think the biggest threat to restaurants in Seattle right now are rent prices. I’ve seen a few articles since we last spoke where the owners of closing restaurants themselves indicated this as the factor in their business decision. Things here are crazy! To put it into perspective, rent control seems to be the topic du jour in local media. That’s not something I ever thought I’d hear brought up in Seattle, but here we are.”

So why didn't raising the minimum wage cost jobs? The prevailing theory is pretty simple:

[quote]when workers make more money, they spend it, thereby promoting the local economy. The Berkeley study is the latest instance of data indicating that could well be the case.

As for the rest of Seattle:

[quote]If you live in Seattle, you can clearly see the economy booming all around you. We have more restaurants than at any time in our history, our regional unemployment rate is lower than it’s been in nearly a decade, and restaurateurs are paying even higher than the minimum wage in order to attract skilled workers.

Damn you, $15 an hour minimum wage!

[quote]Over the weekend, Seattle Times reporters Janet I. Tu, Rachel Lerman and Dominic Gates wrote a story titled “Heated local economy has employers working hard to fill jobs.” When Seattle’s increased minimum wage was first proposed, members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Restaurant and Hotel Association warned us that Seattleites might have to leave the city in order to eat at restaurants that haven’t closed due to higher wages. (Because driving all the way to Bellevue every time you feel like eating a steak for lunch is a perfectly logical thing that Seattleites do all the time.)

[quote]On the contrary, the Seattle Times story argues, Seattle’s higher minimum wage is actually forcing surrounding communities to raise their minimum wage to match ours.

So instead of businesses rushing out of Seattle to open in cheaper surrounding neighborhoods, workers are rushing to Seattle to take advantage of the higher wages. And the businesses are staying and taking advantage of the wider pool of workers.

A new study on the Seattle wage hikes is in from the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. The bottom line is that:

[quote]The evidence collected here suggests that minimum wages in Seattle up to $13 per hour raised wages for low-paid workers without causing disemployment.

At the time of the study, the wages hadn't finished their climb to the full $15/hour.

Next stupid talking point?

As for the study he cites, it's a rather painfully flawed study. What it does is try to imagine what the data would have been without the minimum wage and the compare it to the actual data. Do I really need to point out the problem with this approach?

[quote]While it is impossible to directly observe what would have happened if no wage ordinance had been implemented, this report uses widely accepted statistical techniques to compare Seattle in its current state — with the presence of the Minimum Wage Ordinance — to an image of what Seattle might have looked like today if not for the Minimum Wage Ordinance.

Quoting from a CSM article:

[quote]To determine what would have happened to Seattle in the absence of the ordinance, the researchers ... created a "synthetic" version of Seattle by looking at a set of zip codes from outside Seattle that, when added together, mimicked the behavior of Seattle before the ordinance.

...

[quote]However, [Sage] Wilson [a spokesperson for Working Washington] questioned the effectiveness of the "synthetic Seattle" model, saying Seattle had a smaller recession and quicker recovery than the surrounding area, which may explain the faster growth “synthetic” Seattle experienced. Also, Seattle is growing at a fast pace, a pace Wilson says may be the "upper bound" of how fast the city can grow.

[quote]"What Seattle workers experienced was higher wages, more hours and more employment," Wilson says. "The argument of some of the takeaways from the report were about whether that was slightly relatively less than they modeled as possible, which is a much more hypothetical question than the reality of a worker's experience, which is several hundred more dollars a quarter in income, which is substantial. The only negatives were relative ones"

Seattle's unemployment rate is currently at 3.9%. Damn that minimum wage for costing the city so many jobs! Other studies are cited in the linked article.

Salvatore Babones, a "senior lecturer in sociology and social policy at the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C."

BABONES: There's a theory that make raising the minimum wage will result in fewer jobs. And that theory seems to make intuitive sense, that when wages are higher, you know, people hire fewer people. And in isolation that would be true. There's an assumption economists like to make called ceteris paribus, which means all other things remaining equal, this would happen.

But all other things are never equal. For example, if you raise the minimum wage, people make more money. That's the first thing that's not equal. As people make more money, they spend more, they pay more in taxes. The entire character of the economy changes.

And so what we really need to do is instead of arguing from theory that if you raise minimum wage it would cause problems for employers, you should argue from fact, that is, look at countries where the minimum wage is higher, see how well they're doing. And, in fact, those countries are doing quite well. Even in the United States, we recently raised the minimum wage from an extraordinarily low level of $5.15 an hour in 2007 up to--now it's $7.25 an hour--not a high level, but still that's an enormous increase in the minimum wage, you know, almost a 50 percent increase in just a few years. And what have we seen? Even though there's been a big recession in the U.S., we've seen low-wage employment actually increase. So, you know, the idea that raising the minimum wage will hurt employment just has no basis in empirical fact. It's an interesting idea, and it's a very nice idea if you're an employer and you want to pay low wages, but the studies just don't bear out that raising the minimum wage has any impact on employment whatsoever.

R72 About half way up Chuckanut there's a elder gay nude beach. I happened upon it walking the railroad tracks one summer afternoon.

A lot of posters here from the SEIU. Seattle’s unemployment rate may be low, but its population of welfare recipients, homeless, and others that have stopped looking for a job have skyrocketed...$15/hour has priced these people out of a job. Taxpayers now have to pay for all of them. Why not let wages be determined by the market and supplemented by the EITC. That way inexperienced and unskilled people (esp poor minorities) can get a job and start the long road of training if they want. Unions don’t like that though. Taxpayers would save too because although the EITC is a subsidy, it’s still less than full welfare. A job = dignity for most people.

R51

That bridge now has a suicide barrier on it.

Here come the brides!

[quote]Seattle’s unemployment rate may be low, but its population of welfare recipients, homeless, and others that have stopped looking for a job have skyrocketed...$15/hour has priced these people out of a job.

Oh, garbage. You don't have the data to support this assertion. You're simply making shit up and hoping that nobody will notice.

Additional methodological concerns with the study cited above.

[quote]Even after comparing Seattle with a supposedly appropriate control group, the authors’ methodology implies that the $13.00 minimum wage in Seattle increased the number of quarterly hours worked in jobs paying over $19.00 per hour by roughly 2 million hours. It is true that the authors find larger reductions in hours for jobs paying under $19.00 per hour, but instead of estimating that there are zero hours increases in the upper part of the wage distribution, their methodology mistakenly suggests that the minimum wage caused economically large increases in the number of hours worked by higher-paying jobs.

So while they claim that the number of hours worked by those making minimum wage decreased, their own methodology finds that the number of hours worked by those making just above minimum wage [italic]increased[/italic]. So either Seattle businesses, out of the goodness of their hearts, have decided to increase the number of hours worked by those making $19 an hour or the study is deeply flawed.

And with no net loss in jobs, any loss of minimum wage jobs is offset by the increase in jobs paying above minimum wage. And this is supposed to be a bad thing?

What they claimed to find was that there was a net decrease of lower-paid hours and a net increase of higher-paid hours, as noted by the Washington Post:

[quote]Indeed, while employment overall did not change, that was because employers replaced low-paying jobs with high-paying jobs. The number of workers making over $19 an hour increased abruptly, while the number making less than that amount declined, Vigdor and his colleagues found.

What the study tried to do was to construct a model baseline of the total number of hours they would have expected minimum-wage workers to receive, then they compared that model to the real-world data which showed minimum-wage workers working fewer hours than the model, with more hours going to higher-paid workers.

What the enemies of minimum wage hikes are going to claim is that this "proves" that minimum wage workers got screwed because they're going to ignore the statistic that said that there was no net loss of jobs. In fact, what the study really shows is that people were paid more. A more plausible explanation is:

[quote]Seattle's economy is booming, and in a booming economy, more workers are likely to get raises or find jobs that pay better, and it may be that phenomenon -- of workers getting raises, promotions or better paying jobs -- that explains the shifts in the labor market the researchers see in Seattle.

And still yet another problem: the study failed to include larger employers with multiple locations, thereby removing a substantial portion of the labor market from their research.

[quote]There could be another explanation for the results, however: the fact that large employers are not included. It could be that even if employers with only a single location cut payrolls, large firms expanded at the same time, giving low-wage workers other opportunities to earn money.

So no net loss of jobs, no massive business closures, and a booming economy, all things that are not supposed to happen when you increase the minimum wage. These data are confirmed by other locations across the U.S. which also have a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum. The doom and gloom by those opposed to the minimum wage just has not happened.

My niece, who graduated college, started working in a bank for 16.00 an hour. Not great, but a good start almost twice minimum wage, making those four years and her student loans worth the investment. Now her company has $15.00 minimum wage, she is only making less than two dollars an hour over the new hires and doing more work with less people. This completely invalidates her education and student loans. Due to her education, she may be positioned for advancement in the future, but in the short term it sucks to be her.

Yeah right, niece/nephew troll.

I'm from Portland and like to visit Seattle every so often. I wouldn't ever live in Seattle because of the horrible traffic, though Portland can get congested on occasion. Portland, like the rest of the state, has no sales tax. If you want to live in the downtown area of either city, there are sections that are to be avoided; day or night. Yes, both cities are beautiful in the summer, but you have to endure the rain. While Seattle is a major hub for flights, both are rather remote from the rest of the U.S. Though if you like the outdoors, then Oregon and Washington have lots to offer. To answer OP's question, both states are nice places, with a few shit holes here and there.

R93 What is the ratio of tops to bottoms where you live? Most places seem to be about 80 to 90% bottom.

Stll no discussion of Seattle Freeze.

Another weird thing about Seattle is all the freakishly tall people, both male and female. I am 5'11 and felt like a shrimp compared to the giants all around.

This is lame, like Seattle.

R96 Hormones. Antibiotics.

That's not true R31. In fact, in most of the country, people would stop to help out. Not in Seattle. Not in Atlanta or Dallas. Wherever young twenty-something people go for jobs, these places are mean and vicious.

I would never pick up a hitchhiker, even a white one. My safety is paramount.

Seattle is a provincial small town wrapped up in what photographs well as a dazzling landscape. But a closer look is terribly depressing and oddly numbing / detached. so just keep your time there as shallow as possible. The nature is so much better than the people.

Portland is forcefully kitschy, but the aggressive local meth population and nearby rural deplorables create an interesting undercurrent. When it gets palpable, you're just wishing you were across the street or still drinking at the brewery. Though nature there too is pretty. Too bad the humans fuck up both places.

Both cities are obviously on the North American continent yet each kind of seems like its own strange morose island universe. Introverts may do better in either than extroverts (both the boisterous types from the east, or the obnoxious types from California).

[quote]Portland is forcefully kitschy

Huh?

[quote]Introverts may do better in either than extroverts

That's for damn sure.

Seattle and Tacoma have to be two of the worst shitholes ANYWHERE! Rivaling only Baghdad or Raqqa for shittiness.

[quote]Portland is a drug-infested fuckhole!

For R95, "Seattle freeze" refers to the widely-held belief among newcomers that it is very difficult to make friends in Seattle. It's in Wikipedia.

Someone asked about Spokane. Different climate (hotter summers, colder winters, much more snow, sunnier), different politics (purple, not blue, surrounding farmlands very red), more open terrain, no traffic issues, cheaper housing, one of the country's largest collection of well-maintained craftsman houses, fewer cultural offerings, not nearly as many gay people. But about 10,000 this year's pride festival. Too many homeless, but no tent cities of homeless. Winter climate insures crappy pot-holed streets.

lived in Portland for 15 years. it is the kind of place you can live in for a decade, and still not make one friend. everyone is smart, polite, but they are either not from there themselves, or lived there all of their lives. the outsiders befriend each other, the homegrowns keep their crew they've had with childhood. cities are blue, but the lower orders and surrounding areas are full of white trash who have mostly never met a minority up close, but still hate them all just the same. no shitting--a lot of Oregon was settled by former southerners running away from freed slaves and reconstruction from the Civil War, and many places had Sundown laws up into last century. restaurants are kinda crappy, even ethnic ones, except at the high end. there is no real deli, and the pizza is sad. and yet it is constantly being touted as a foodie town. tons of colleges around, and a lot of people move there from elsewhere thinking it's a Green mecca when it's really run by an old boy's network of old white dudes who seem to all be connected to each other, like they were in the same college frat or something. all these outsiders do is run up the cost of most everything, but if they didn't come then there wouldn't be much of any economy. Nike can't employ everyone. you will earn less and suffer longer periods of unemployment here. crap ton of homeless, and the influx swells by 2x, 3x in the summers. can you stand 6 straight months of grey and drizzle? if not, keep away. costs are also not as low there as you would think, unless you are coming from NY or San Fran.

I hated Seattle long before it was fashionable to do so. I took a job there in 1978 and, while I liked the job, the people did not like me. I even found it hard to get laid, something I had had no problem with in LA or NY, where I moved there from. "Seattle Freeze" is perfect.

Oddly, I moved to Portland next, and though I liked it a whole lot more, I hated my new job, and I moved back east at my earliest opportunity.

Is there really any city left in America that isn't at least partially a shithole? They all have big problems and they're just getting worse.

The "no state income tax" states just make that shortfall up elsewhere with higher taxes (usually very high sales tax).

Portland is a long way from LA

r110 Simple solution: Live in Washington (no income tax), shop in Oregon (no sales tax.)

It rains so much that instead of getting a tan, you RUST!

[quote]Simple solution: Live in Washington (no income tax), shop in Oregon (no sales tax.)

And spend half your life sitting in traffic waiting to cross the bridge each way.

I spent 12 of the last 20 years living in Seattle. Proximity to water, mountains, national parks, and all of the recreational actives that take place in such environments is priceless, if that matters to you. It's indeed rainy and gray in the winter, but spring springs fast and the summers are unbeatable: warm but not too hot; low humidity; sun nearly every day; daylight until after 10pm; no mosquitoes; no ticks (if you're an outdoors person, especially one with a dog, then you'll understand the value here).

Perhaps because I found a core group of friends shortly after moving there in 2000, I never really experienced the Seattle freeze.

A year and a half ago I moved to Minnesota to be closer to family. Midwest and East Coast winters drag on and on. There are mosquitoes and ticks (and all of the diseases they carry) everywhere. Summers are not only comparatively brief, but oppressively hot and humid. I miss the PNW but am beginning to wonder if I even want to live in the US at all.

I find Portland overrated.

R115 Enjoy your life before you inevitably get Lyme disease.

Concrete, WA, is a great place to raise a family.

Seriously? No thanks.

I grew up in Concrete.