‘Seattle’s lost its economic mojo.’ Downtown Seattle Association report claims taxes are driving out jobs

Seattle is losing jobs to Bellevue.

That’s the assertion in a new report from the Downtown Seattle Association, an advocacy group focused on economic development. DSA estimates that between 2023-2025, Seattle lost 1.3% of its jobs, while Bellevue’s labor pool increased 12.6%.

“ My top takeaway is Seattle’s lost its economic mojo,” DSA President and CEO Jon Scholes said. “It’s been five years since the city imposed a significant set of new business taxes, and in that time, we’ve lost about 30,000 jobs in downtown Seattle. Across the lake in Bellevue, a city dealing with similar issues coming out of the pandemic, whether it’s hybrid work or shifts in the tech economy, well, they’ve grown jobs over that same period.”

Those numbers come from the Puget Sound Regional Council and Placer.ai. DSA also estimates that Seattle’s downtown office vacancy rate increased to 32% from 6.7% in 2019. Bellevue’s office vacancy rate has also risen from 2.5% to 24% over that time.

New taxes in Seattle were not the only economic variable during the period the report covers. Lasting impacts of the pandemic, widespread tech layoffs, and stubborn inflation have also created economic uncertainty for businesses.

“ Those are variables that Bellevue’s dealing with as well, and they’ve attracted an incredible amount of job growth in the last five years from Amazon, from companies out of the Bay Area that have considered a second or a Pacific Northwest.” Scholes said. “And a majority of those companies, a vast majority, have chosen the east side of the lake, not the west side.”

The report calls out Seattle’s JumpStart payroll tax as a particular pain point for employers. Passed in 2020 to fund affordable housing and pandemic relief, JumpStart taxes the salaries of high earners at the city’s largest companies.

King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda helped architect JumpStart when she sat on Seattle City Council. She called the DSA report “revisionist history” that ignores the fallout of Covid.

“ I think it’s a lazy talking point to try to point fingers when truly this was the source that kept Seattle’s budget in the black for the first four years of the pandemic,” she said.

Mosqueda also noted that JumpStart is now the largest source of funding for permanent supportive housing, making Seattle a leader in the region.

“ Let’s get away from this lazy politics of pitting one city against another, and recognize that we, in this region, are all better when we invest in housing, in workforce housing, and in permanent supportive housing to keep people off the street,” Mosqueda said.