Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks are more than brands that call Washington State home. They are symbols of the state’s identity and a source of economic gravity that supports everything from manufacturing and office leasing to restaurants, vendors, and tax receipts. Fiscal irresponsibility, the imposition of new taxes, and an avalanche of regulations have begun to take their toll.
In 2025, Starbucks, the company synonymous with the Emerald City and the American Northwest, announced plans to relocate its corporate expansion to Nashville. Even if the move affects only part of the business, Washington should not dismiss it as a minor administrative shuffle.
Common sense tells us that companies want a business environment where they aren’t viewed as the enemy or a piggybank for big-spending politicians. Nashville has become an increasingly attractive destination, offering a favorable business climate that significantly lowers operating costs compared to Seattle and other West Coast hubs. From a corporate strategy standpoint, this makes perfect sense. From Washington state's perspective, however, policymakers must recognize that these relocations are not isolated events — they signal an accelerating trend.
In the case of Starbucks, the state is not just slowly losing part of its identity. The state is expected to lose approximately a quarter of a billion dollars in tax revenue. Like a jolt of Grande Nitro Cold Brew, high-caffeine coffee, this should be a wake-up call. The state cannot assume major employers will remain anchored there simply because of history or loyalty. When a company so closely associated with Washington begins shifting work elsewhere, it raises broader concerns about competitiveness and about who will be next.
The real issue is not just the loss of corporate jobs. It is the disappearance of the multiplier effects those jobs generate throughout the local economy. Economists have long found that high-paying headquarters positions support a broad network of additional economic activity.
Companies lease office space. Their employees rent apartments, dine at family-owned neighborhood restaurants, and rely on local accountants, lawyers, retailers, and countless other local businesses.
Every white-collar headquarters job helps sustain a much larger ecosystem of blue-collar workers and entrepreneurs. Losing these jobs, it is not just the payroll that leaves; it is the consumer spending, private investment, and tax revenue that ripple throughout the community.
Washington leaders should treat any such move as a crisis. Instead, they are building a bigger exit ramp.
In 2025, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson signed a state law granting union workers up to 6 weeks of unemployment insurance for striking. Rep. Suzanne Schmidt tried to lower the benefit to four instead of six weeks, warning that just an additional two weeks will cost the state $35 million to pay unemployment insurance for a large manufacturer with 15,000 people on strike. That may sound like a nice paid vacation for union workers, but for a salaried engineer making $100,000 a year, that unemployment may only equal half of their salary if they receive the maximum of $1,019 per week. Worse, it could lead to permanent unemployment if the company were to leave.
And why wouldn’t they? A prolonged labor strike can cost a company billions of dollars in productivity.
The illogical way to pay for such a drastic measure, increase taxes on everyone. Washington already ranks among the top five for taxes, and they are proposing to slap more on. You wonder why anyone stays.
Washington still has deep talent, global connectivity, and a strong innovation economy. Starbucks — as well as Amazon, Boeing and Microsoft — grew there for a reason. The challenge is to preserve the conditions that made that growth possible while adapting to a more mobile corporate landscape. Encouraging labor unions to strike will not help.
Starbucks should be a stark warning to the state to make it more attractive for employers to stay and expand there.
Washington lawmakers may not get it, but Governors from lower-cost, business-friendly states certainly do. If you start to see more labor union strikes in Washington, the Governors from Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas will be chomping at the bit to lure these legacy Washington businesses to their states.
Dr. Brett M. Decker is the Endowed Chair of Leadership at Northwood University. He is a New York Times bestselling author, former Senior Vice President of Communications at Export-Import Bank of the United States, former Editorial Pager Writer for The Wall Street Journal, and former Senior Vice President, Foundation at Pentagon Federal Credit Union