‘This model is broken’: Gee and Ursula question Seattle’s loss of 24,000 jobs as rest of King County gained

Seattle’s reliance on business taxes had KIRO host Gee Scott questioning whether struggling employers are being heard at City Hall, while KIRO host Ursula Reutin said the city’s job losses should prompt leaders to rethink their approach.

Discussing a report commissioned by the Downtown Seattle Association and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber during “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, the hosts raised concerns about businesses’ ability to survive rising costs.

Ursula cited findings that Seattle’s city tax collections increased more than 170% between 2013 and 2025, while its population grew just over 30%. Businesses account for an estimated 68% of city tax collections, according to the report she discussed.

“This model is broken, and we will continue to see,” Gee said.

Gee questions businesses’ influence over Seattle’s tax decisions

Ursula said the report showed Seattle lost about 24,000 jobs between 2020 and 2025, while the rest of King County gained about 21,000.

She emphasized that the findings did not establish that Seattle’s taxes caused those job losses or companies’ moves elsewhere.

“This report, though, I got to point out, does not prove that Seattle’s taxes caused those job losses or moves,” Ursula said.

For Gee, the figures raised a question about political representation. He argued that business owners who do not live in Seattle help fund city services but cannot vote in its elections.

“At what point do these leaders, the Katie Wilsons in local government, have to actually listen to the businesses?” Gee asked.

He acknowledged that owning a business does not give someone a vote. His concern was whether elected officials have enough incentive to respond to business owners who live elsewhere.

Ursula pushed back on the idea that businesses lack electoral influence, pointing to the people they employ.

“People have jobs in these businesses,” Ursula said. “And if Bellevue and other East Side companies are getting what used to be in Seattle, that’s a big problem. That’s a tax base that you are losing.”

Gee and Ursula question what happens to struggling businesses

Gee said his concern was not primarily about the largest companies, but businesses barely able to stay open.

“There are a lot of businesses that are on life support in Seattle, and they probably won’t make it because the business climate in Seattle is awful,” Gee said.

He predicted that businesses with the deepest financial resources would be the ones left standing.

Ursula also raised concerns about vacant office space and the consequences of repeatedly increasing taxes. However, she credited Wilson’s latest budget proposal for not including new taxes.

Gee argued that the proposal only delayed the underlying problem.

“It just kicked it down the road,” he said.

Ursula returned to the contrast between Seattle’s job losses and gains elsewhere in the county.

“But if Seattle keeps losing jobs and other parts of King County are gaining, I mean, you got to ask, what can we fix?” she said.

Gee compares business pressures to displacement

Gee compared the pressures facing small businesses to the displacement of longtime homeowners who could no longer afford property taxes.

He pointed to changes in Seattle’s Central District, arguing that a neighborhood can remain while the people who shaped it are replaced. He predicted a similar outcome for downtown businesses.

“Businesses will continue. It will just look different,” Gee said.

For him, the question was not simply whether Seattle would have businesses in the future, but whether its existing businesses could survive.

“What can we do to help the businesses that are here now?” Gee asked. “And I’m saying, I think that the same story will end with these businesses the same way it ended with gentrification.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.