Opinion: Possible rerun ahead: Majority of voters told lawmakers to get rid of WA Cares in 2019

Elizabeth New (Hovde) argues that voters may support I-2124 to make WA Cares optional, highlighting past opposition and financial concerns.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) believes that in November, lawmakers who voted for a program that hurts workers more than it will help them shouldn’t be surprised if voters say ‘yes’ to I-2124

Elizabeth New (Hovde)
Washington Policy Center

If Initiative 2124 passes in November and makes WA Cares an optional program, we shouldn’t be surprised. Washington state voters have been telling lawmakers to get rid of WA Cares since 2019: In that year’s general election, 62.92% of Washington voters said House Bill 1087 should be repealed, doing away with WA Cares and an accompanying payroll tax that harms workers. Now that 3.9 million workers are having wages taken for a program they know they might never benefit from, opposition to WA Care has likely grown.

If only the Legislature had listened. We could have saved taxpayers a lot of money. The state has already spent millions of taxpayer dollars on program creation, administration and marketing, and it has collected more than a billion dollars from workers. That’s money that could have gone toward life needs workers have today. Money could have been saved for or invested in long-term care, if they chose.

In July 2023, workers started paying a payroll tax of 58 cents on every $100 wages, regardless of income or financial need. The money is sent to a fund that is supposed to, in a few years, pay for some people’s services related to long-term care. The state gets to choose the fund’s winners and losers, however. WA Cares isn’t a pay-in-get-back deal.

If voters say “yes” to I-2124, making the program optional instead of mandatory, lawmakers should then repeal HB 1087 as soon as possible. WA Cares already has solvency concerns. Those will become insurmountable. Actuarialists say WA Cares will be in a death spiral, unable to keep the tax rate where it’s at and still offer the already-inadequate benefit to workers who do clear all the benefit hurdles contained in the law.

In November, lawmakers who voted for a program that hurts workers more than it will help them shouldn’t be surprised if voters say “yes” to I-2124. Voters told them they didn’t want WA Cares before a dollar was wasted.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) is a policy analyst and the director of the Center for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. She is a Clark County resident.