Creating a more just and equitable state

In 2006, a visionary group of public policy experts, community leaders, and social justice advocates founded the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, a nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to building a stronger, more equitable state. They were guided by the belief that everyone deserves access to opportunity and that we can all work together to build a budget, economy, and tax code that serves everyone.

Today, we leverage research and policy analysis, narrative building, outreach, and advocacy to advance racially just economic policy and tribal sovereignty in Washington. We work with a wide range of partners and grassroots coalitions to move our policy priorities forward. In recent years, we played a key role in helping pass and uphold our state’s capital gains excise tax, which provides critical funding for early learning and schools, and helping pass the Working Families Tax Credit, a state tax credit for households with low incomes.

Guided by anti-racist principles

We believe that:

• Dismantling racism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism is essential to undoing other forms of oppression and building a more just Washington state.
• Communities who are most impacted have the best knowledge to design racially just economic policy.
• Public policy to reduce the racial wealth and income gap and return wealth to Black, Native, and other communities of color is necessary to ensure everyone in Washingtonians can live with economic dignity.

Learn more about us in our theory of change.