Washington
Why Is Washington State So Expensive?
- To meet housing demand, Washington needs to add over a million homes by 2044, a 2023 state report found. More than half of renters are burdened by housing costs.
- Topography and population distribution patterns also make it expensive to transport in oil, driving up prices at the pump.
- The state is trying different ways to address its housing challenge — including with a forthcoming new agency.
At a time when affordability has been top of mind for residents across the country, a new report shines light on just how rapidly costs have risen for those living in Washington state. In fact, the report finds that, from 2013-2023, prices rose faster in the Evergreen State than in any other.
For certain metropolitan regions — around Spokane and Tri-Cities, for example — costs of living rose particularly sharply. The cost of living for a dual-income family with one child rose about 30 percent from 2021-2025 in those areas, per the report.
“As somebody who lives in the Northwest, and particularly in the Seattle area, cost of living is very expensive,” says Morgan Shook, senior policy adviser at public policy research firm ECOnorthwest, who was not associated with the report. “The cost of goods and services have been just appreciably more expensive … gas is really expensive, as well as a range of retail and personal services. Whether you’re going out for lunch, dinner or even just groceries.”
One of the biggest drivers of the rising cost of living in Washington, and the Seattle area in particular, is housing. To some extent, housing, wages and prices all rise together — when cost of living is high, workers need to earn more to live there, so companies often pay higher wages; then, to make up for the higher labor cost, companies raise their prices.
But housing costs in areas like Seattle have been outpacing wage growth.
From 2010 to 2019, the median home value in Seattle rose 80 percent, while the median income in the county that encompasses Seattle only rose 55 percent. In addition, from 2014-2019, rent increases in most parts of the city outpaced income growth, with rents in the most affordable areas rising fastest.
How and why did everything get so expensive?
Many People, Few Homes
For a while, home price fluctuations in Seattle had mirrored national trends. In Seattle and nationally, average home prices rose between January 2000 and 2007, when they peaked. By January 2007, the average home price in Seattle had grown 82 percent over what it was in January 2000, compared to 71 percent across the U.S. Prices then tumbled everywhere for several years.
After the mid-2010s, however, Seattle began outpacing much of the country.
By August 2020, the average Seattle home price was 157 percent higher, compared to 103 percent across the U.S. That disparity extends to the state overall: In Washington state, home prices in 2020 were up 154 percent compared to January 2000.
Today, housing availability is a statewide problem and a huge driver of cost of living.
“Washington’s growing population exceeded 8.1 million people in 2025, and this growth has put a strain on the state’s existing housing supply and affordability,” Gov. Bob Ferguson said in an executive order in December 2025.
More than half of Washington renters spend over a third of their annual gross income in housing costs, and a quarter pay more than half. The Washington Center for Housing Studies, meanwhile, found that 80 percent of households were priced out of homeownership in 2025.
A 2023 report found the state needs to add 1.1 million homes by 2044 to meet projected needs. More than half of that housing must be affordable to people earning less than half of area median income. That means adding 55,000 homes per year.
High-paying jobs in life sciences, global health and technology have drawn people from around the world to come live and work in Seattle. A 2021 city of Seattle report found that in 2005, the city had a ratio of about 1.8 jobs per housing unit. But the city couldn’t produce enough housing to maintain this balance. From 2005-2019, the city gained about two net new jobs for every one new unit of housing, and from 2011-2019, added about 2.6 net new jobs per one unit of new housing. Overall, the city added 169,461 jobs from 2005-2019, but only 84,185 new units of housing.
Other cities with strong job growth like Austin, Dallas and Las Vegas have been able to build housing to accommodate new arrivals, resulting in home and rent prices stabilizing, says Barbara Denham, lead U.S. economist at economics advisory firm Oxford Economics.
“There’s so many parts of the country, like Arizona, Texas, Nevada, where they just have huge, open, very dry and boring swaths of land that developers can come in and just build, build, build … it keeps the price of housing down,” Denham says.
One factor challenging Washington may be how the state has balanced various goals when planning for growth. State policy stemming from the 1990s directed fast-growing counties and cities to plan for where this growth should occur, while following certain principles. Those include reducing sprawl and encouraging development in urban areas, as well as protecting air and water quality and preserving open space. The law drew boundary lines around metropolitan areas and discouraged building outside of them, to protect farm and forest land.
This leads cities to focus on in-fill development, with developers constructing in gaps between existing buildings or on lots that already have other structures. That’s the most difficult kind of development, Shook says. Rising labor costs, limited locally available construction workers and shortages of building materials driven by high demand also sent Seattle construction costs rising 40 percent from 2009 to 2021, per the city.
Insufficient stock drives up prices, and those unable to afford homebuying become a captive market for landlords, who can raise rents, Denham says. (From 2000-2020, Seattle only saw rents stabilize or decline when housing vacancy rates hit at least 6 percent, per the city report). As rents rise, people are less able to save up for a house, feeding the cycle.
Lower-income renter households in King County often resort to overcrowding, squeezing people into units with too-few bedrooms because it’s what they can afford, Shook says. Others may not find somewhere to live at all: The city reports that, in 2021, about 34,000 people earning less than $40,000 from jobs in Seattle lived more than 25 miles outside the city and commuted in; someone earning at this level could only afford a studio in “one of the lowest cost areas of the city.”
Washington’s population, and thus housing need, continues to rise — the census lists it as tied with several other states for the sixth fastest-growing between 2024-2025. But decline in net international migration is slowing the rate of population growth across the U.S., and Washington is feeling that, too. The number of net new arrivals in 2025 was the lowest the state had seen since 2013 (with the exception of 2021, during the pandemic).
In Seattle specifically, new college grads are expected to keep arriving as job growth continues, Denham says. But much of the area’s population increase comes from international immigration. A combination of domestic and international migration raised Seattle’s population by 49,000 in 2024, but by just 19,000 in 2025 and is expected to only add 9,600 people in 2026, she says.
Other Factors
Beyond housing, some other costs are unusually high, too. Gas at the pump is the second most expensive in the U.S., per a report. Transportation is a big factor — oil has to be brought in over mountainous terrain and delivered to spread-out population centers, says James McCafferty, director of the Center for Economic & Business Research at Western Washington University. Only a small portion of Washington’s oil comes via pipeline, the cheapest transportation method — with the rest delivered more expensively via ship and rail.
“North Dakota can send their oil south into the U.S through a pipeline for far less expense than it is to ship it by train to northwest Washington to be refined,” McCafferty says. High labor costs make it more expensive to refine the oil in the state, too, he adds.
Tackling Housing
A flurry of state laws seeks to ramp up housing supply. Just in the past year and a half, the state has lowered parking requirements for homes to reduce construction costs, capped some rent increases and sought to streamline permitting.
Washington also has been funneling more money into its Housing Trust Fund, which helps low- and very-low-income people get housing, by funding rent and home down payment subsidies, housing construction and other projects. The fund spent nearly $729 million in the 2021-2023 budget cycle, up from roughly $242 million in the previous cycle and $112 million the budget before that.
But the biggest change is in the works. The state plans to revamp its approach by creating a cabinet-level Department of Housing, which would bring the state’s various housing-related efforts into a single department. The move is intended to provide more transparency and coordination, including reducing administrative hurdles.
A task force is preparing recommendations for how to do this, which lawmakers will consider during the 2027 session.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Washington’s National Mall is set to be drained again for repairs after algae and peeling paint appeared just weeks after a US$14.7 million renovation, while President Donald Trump threatened prison time for anyone caught damaging the pool.
The DC Water authority issued a permit to drain the 609-metre rectangular pool, it said on Monday, while the repair company said it would fix the pool as part of its warranty.
Peeling paint and algae growth have been visible in the pool since soon after Trump declared the renovation project complete on June 6. Critics have raised concerns about the no-bid contract to recoat the pool before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations next month, as well as for the ducks that use its water. Workers from the National Park Service earlier this week poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool to combat the algae.
Trump, without evidence, has blamed vandals for the state of the landmark. On Monday, he echoed a weekend threat by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro to prosecute people accused of attempting to destroy the pool.
“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump earlier wrote in a social media post. Destruction of federal property can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
It was not immediately apparent what criminal or civil violation someone might commit reaching into the pool.
Half a year can be an eternity in the NBA.
Seven months ago, as Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks headed toward a divorce, Young’s value within the league had never been lower.
On Monday, Young and the Washington Wizards agreed to a new four-year, maximum-salary contract worth approximately $212.9 million, according to a league source. The fourth year of the contract will be a player option.
Young’s first-year salary is estimated to be $49.5 million, which amounts to 30 percent of the projected 2026-27 salary cap of $165 million. During the 2029-30 season, the final year of the contract, Young will earn $56.9 million if he accepts his player option.
Wizards officials would love it, of course, if Young can return to the form that made him an All-NBA Third Team player during the 2021-22 season. But at the very least, they place significant value on knowing that their team’s offense will start with him on most occasions, and that he will be around to shoulder a large portion of the scoring load while the team’s young players, who comprise the team’s long-term nucleus, continue to improve.
Wizards get the No. 1 draft pick. Will it make a difference?
David Aldridge
That Young will receive such large annual salaries no doubt will come as a shock to many observers, especially after Young’s reputation took a beating toward the end of his Hawks tenure. The NBA rumor mill, which is often inaccurate, predicted months ago that any new deal between Young and the Wizards would average no more than $40 million annually.
But in recent weeks, Wizards decision-makers became convinced that, with the NBA’s new anti-tanking measures compelling more teams to compete, Young was going to command maximum-salary contract offers from other franchises through either a straight free-agent signing or a sign-and-trade proposal.
Because the Wizards hold Young’s Bird rights, the Wizards had the latitude to offer Young up to a five-year contract with 8 percent annual raises. But Young’s new four-year deal instead features 5 percent year-over-year raises, the maximum year-over-year raise that any other team could have offered Young as a non-Bird free agent. For Washington, the difference between signing Young to 5 percent raises instead of 8 percent raises will amount to a total savings of $8.9 million over four years.
Wizards officials are not concerned that Young’s new contract will age poorly and prevent them from making future moves to improve their roster. Anthony Davis, who is due to earn $58.5 million in 2026-27, and Young are now Washington’s highest-paid players on its young roster, but the person with the third-largest salary is big man Alex Sarr, who will be paid the relatively small sum of $12.3 million this season. At the earliest, the Wizards do not expect to approach the dreaded first apron until the 2028-29 season, when any new rookie-scale contract extensions for Sarr and Kyshawn George would go into effect.
Plus, Wizards officials reason that Young, who will turn 28 years old in September, will remain in his prime years through the end of his contract. The onerous large contracts that age the worst — potentially Jimmy Butler’s current deal with the Golden State Warriors and Paul George’s current deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, for example — tend to be contracts in which players already are past their primes at the start of their contracts.
Young is by no means a perfect player. Undersized at 6 feet 1, and undeniably more focused on the offensive end of the floor, he tended to be a significant defensive liability throughout his Hawks tenure. That trend could worsen if he begins to lose a step (or two) over the next several years.
At the same time, though, Wizards officials have always known that their lineups would have to feature enough positional size and enough defensive-oriented players to compensate for Young’s shortcomings — in the same way that the defensive liabilities of LaMelo Ball, Jalen Brunson, Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell (and others) are compensated for by their respective teams.
The Wizards’ decision-makers believe Davis and youngsters Bilal Coulibaly, Davis, George, Sarr and whomever they pick first overall in Tuesday night’s draft will develop into strong enough defenders to help Young.
Young appeared in only five games for Washington last season after his trade from Atlanta for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. That was a large enough sample size to demonstrate how his gravity and his passing skill could create open shots for his new teammates. George, Tre Johnson and others should receive more wide-open 3-point looks when Young directs the offense, and Sarr and Davis should feast on lobs from Young in pick-and-rolls.
Only 16 players in NBA history have averaged at least 20 points and 10 assists per game in the same season, according to Basketball Reference. Young is one of those players, and he has done it three times, during the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. The only other players who have had at least three seasons of at least 20 points and 10 assists per game are James Harden (four times), Kevin Johnson (three times), Magic Johnson (three times), Oscar Robertson (five times), Isiah Thomas (four times) and Russell Westbrook (five times).
The franchise expects Young to make Washington’s offense more efficient and, because opponents will have to take the ball out of their net more often, give Washington’s defense more opportunities to set itself.
July 6 is the first day when new free-agent contracts may be signed and made official.
President Trump did not provide evidence that vandals damaged the Reflecting Pool. The $14 million renovation marked the latest in his efforts to beautify Washington, D.C.
(Courtesy CNN)
Courtesy CNN
(Courtesy CNN)
Courtesy CNN
(Courtesy CNN)
Courtesy CNN
(Courtesy CNN)
Courtesy CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump claimed Saturday, without providing evidence, that vandals damaged the algae-plagued Reflecting Pool on the National Mall and that the water will need to be drained for repairs.
Trump said police arrested “many additional people” for the vandalism, though one told CNN he was merely touching a piece of partially detached blue material from the recent renovation.
A senior administration official said police arrested five people for vandalism and issued federal citations to five others. The official said there were 14 police reports over vanadlism including for an alleged incident where a more than 250-foot section was cut with a blade.
“The Reflecting Pool was never so beautiful as it was just one week ago,” Trump said, adding that it will repaired quickly. Trump’s recent renovation, totaling $14 million, marked the latest in the president’s efforts to beautify Washington, DC, with architectural changes that have included building a White House ballroom and refurbishing run-down fountains.
Now, what was meant to be a straightforward task to return the century-old pool to its intended glory ahead of America’s 250th anniversary has become a spectacle, drawing tourists and locals to the pool for the wrong reason.
Three-time US Olympian David Hearn told CNN that police arrested him Friday after he said he touched a flap of blue material partially detached from the bottom of the pool. Hearn, who says he has a background in material science, told CNN he checked it out following a bike ride after reading reports of algae in the water and paint or sealant peeling off the bottom.
Hearn said he was curious about a partially attached blue flap he saw at the bottom of the Reflecting Pool. Upon reaching into the water, Hearn said he “sort of felt the end” and “bent it around a little bit.”
Hearn said a US National Park Service staffer instructed him not to reach into the water. After Hearn returned to his bike, he said was soon encountered by National Guard members and eventually arrested by the US Park Police. He said he was charged with destruction and defacing government property and disobeying a government employee.
The Olympic canoeist denied vandalizing the Reflecting Pool and said his actions were that of a “curious citizen.”
“There’s nothing about the Reflecting Pool that was in any different condition after I left there than it had before I went by there yesterday. I didn’t remove anything. I didn’t break, tear, peel, or rip, or destroy anything,” Hearn said Saturday.
He is set to appear in court on July 9. CNN has reached out to the US Park Police and the National Park Service to ask about Hearn’s account and for information on any other arrests.
Pet project for the president
Earlier this year, the president described the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as “absolutely filthy,” vowing to clean up the landmark and make it “look gorgeous, beautiful” so it reflects the federal monuments around it.
But with the Fourth of July and America’s 250th anniversary fast approaching, the pool that sits near the feet of Abraham Lincoln’s statue has instead come to reflect the deep divisions over those beautification efforts — and Trump’s presidency itself.
Trump on Friday first echoed claims that surfaced in right-wing circles that the pool’s broader problems are a result of vandalism, and linked it to the etching of “8647” into the grass on the National Mall days prior, adding that law enforcement is investigating.
“We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without citing evidence. He said the algae was “75% gone” and the “vandalized” area will be fixed early next week.
Tourists and local residents alike have flocked to the site in recent days, shooting video of the murky green water for social media posts that feature either a condemnation of Trump’s presidency or a passionate defense of the effort to clean up DC. Some peeled off strips of the blue material to take as souvenirs. Others filmed federal workers pouring bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the water.
The Interior Department has dismissed the visible signs of algae that have only become more abundant as DC’s warm, muggy weather fosters its growth. In a post on X Wednesday, the department’s press office touted its efforts to clear out the algae and described the water as being “crystal clear.”
CNN has reached out to the Interior Department for comment and additional details on the cleanup efforts.
Trump set out in late March to accomplish the renovation that has eluded previous presidents. In a post on Truth Social, he criticized the Biden administration for not taking on the project after a $34 million reconstruction effort under President Barack Obama proved unsuccessful.
In the weeks that followed, Trump expanded the scope of the project and ordered cosmetic changes, including painting the bottom of the pool “American flag blue.” The paint change immediately sparked a lawsuit from a nonprofit group, which argued the project violated federal laws requiring the Interior Department to complete a consultation process before beginning the work.
The president also wanted the project to be complete before July Fourth, an expedited timeline that the administration acknowledged drove up the cost — nearly seven times as much as the initial estimate of $1.8 million.
Trump made a visit to the site to survey progress, and weeks before it was complete, he began celebrating by posting an AI-generated image to Truth Social of him and some of his Cabinet members smiling while floating in the pool.
‘Residual algae’ woes
But just a day after the reservoir was filled with water, algae was already visible from the water’s edge.
The Interior Department told CNN at the time that the algae was “residual” and a normal part of the early process of restarting water flow.
However, within days, clumps of algae took over the pool, prompting the administration to send in workers to vacuum it out, install a filtration known as the “ozone nanobubbler” and dump in gallons of hydrogen peroxide.
To make matters worse for the Trump administration, earlier this week, blue material at the bottom of pool began peeling off. It is unclear whether the material is paint or sealant or what caused it to come up.
Democrats online were quick to gloat.
“You can’t make this up: after railing about waste, fraud, and abuse, the Trump Administration spent $14 million on a reflecting pool reno that’s now peeling and chock full of algae,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said in a post on X. “I’m pressing to get answers for this embarrassing waste of resources.”
Beyond lawmakers, the pool saga has prompted an online debate, filled with false claims and conspiracy theories.
Left-leaning social media users latched onto a clip of a Fox News personality defending the renovation, incorrectly claiming that he was describing the visibly green water as blue. (He was referring to the pool’s bottom.)
Meanwhile, conservative media personality Grant Stinchfield alleged the excessive algae is a product of liberal “sabotage.”
“Is it nefarious? I tend to think so,” Stinchfield told his online viewers from outside the Reflecting Pool.
A video posted by conservative influencer Nick Sortor on Thursday night has also garnered attention. The video appeared to show “8647” traced into the algae at the bottom of the pool. CNN could not independently see that tracing on Saturday. When used as slang, the number 86 can refer to getting rid of or tossing something out. Trump is the 47th president. The phrase has recently been used to signal opposition to Trump.
Outside the pool, a collection of curiosity seekers and social media influencers have also gathered. One woman showed up with a banner painted with a green “Algae” as she chanted, “Algae’s smarter than MAGA.”
Matthew Weimer of California, who was in Washington, DC, to visit friends, applauded the renovation.
“I think it’s pretty great that somebody cared enough to do something about it,” Weimer said. When asked about criticisms over the pool, he said: “The people who are criticizing, what are they doing to make things better?”
Qayla Sykes, who visited from Connecticut for a bachelorette party, made a quick stop at the National Mall to take in the spectacle.
“It looks pretty gross. I’ve taken about like 20 pictures already, especially of the people cleaning it, because I don’t know if I’ll ever see this again in my lifetime,” she said. “Hopefully not.”
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