In the spring of 2018, Seattle’s City Council tried to force some of the world’s most valuable companies to help pay for affordable housing for residents who had been priced out of the market by the legions of Amazon and Starbucks millionaires. The measure, which passed unanimously, would have raised about $47 million each year through a tax on companies with annual revenues exceeding $20 million. The money was supposed to provide affordable housing and other services in a city with the United States’ largest homeless population after San Francisco and New York.
