Tech Companies Help Generate Housing Shortages, Throw Money At The Problem

In guarded language, the Washington State Office of Financial Management divulges that:

Migration continues to be the primary driver behind Washington [State’s] population growth. From 2017 to 2018, net migration (people moving in versus people moving out) to Washington totaled 83,700, … Net migration accounted for 71 percent of the state’s population growth this year, with natural increase (births minus deaths) responsible for the other 29 percent (33,600 persons). … The state has grown by an average of 87,900 persons per year this decade, exceeding that of 83,000 in the previous decade. King County is the main contributor, with total growth of 259,000 persons over eight years, compared to 194,200 persons between 2000 and 2010.

At least where I live, the town is unrecognizable. Costco is like a bazaar in Calcutta. What was a small and friendly town is flooded with Microsoft’s imported labor. I doubt the same people would like it if people speaking loud American English were to flood their stomping grounds back in the Old Country, making it unrecognizable.

Young people can’t afford homes to raise families, as replacement labor with Microsoft salaries—no, it’s not cheap labor AT ALL, unless you call 6-figure compensation “cheap”—pushes prices of property beyond the means of the local residents.

And then demographers complain that Americans aren’t reproducing.

Microsoft has thrown some money at the housing problem, allocating $500 million toward low-income housing because Americans who should be inching into the middle-class can’t afford homes in Seattle and, increasingly, in the surrounding counties.

Again, the reason, in part: the glut of labor Microsoft and other tech companies keep importing.