The unemployment rate is the number everyone reaches for first, and for good reason: it compresses the whole regional labor market into a single, comparable figure — the share of people who want work and are actively looking but haven’t found it. This is the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro version, monthly, back to 1994.
Read it as a history of the region’s shocks. The line climbs into the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, climbs again through the 2008–09 financial crisis to around 9%, and then does something no prior recession did — spikes almost vertically in the spring of 2020, past 15% in a matter of weeks as the pandemic shut the economy overnight. What followed was the fastest recovery in the series: the rate fell back to a low band and has stayed there, wherever the latest month now sits on the chart.
Two reading notes. This is not seasonally adjusted, so the year-to-year sawtooth — a small bump most winters, a dip each fall — is calendar, not economic news; watch the level relative to the same month a year earlier. And an unemployment rate is a ratio, so it can fall for the wrong reason: if people stop looking for work, they leave the denominator and the rate drops without anyone getting hired. Pair this with the jobs-by-sector counts to see whether a low rate reflects real hiring or a shrinking labor force.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue WA MSA, via FRED series SEAT653URN. Not seasonally adjusted; percent of the labor force, dated to the first of each month. New months post about three weeks after month-end; this chart refreshes on the next daily build. State downturns shaded from FRED WAPHCI.
King County’s annual Point-in-Time Count found 18,365 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in late January 2026 — the highest tally on record, and up 9% from 2024. The increase is real but decelerating: the count rose 26% between 2022 and 2024, and less than half that pace over the two years since.
The harder number is where those people are. Unsheltered homelessness climbed to 11,829, or 64% of the total — up from 58% in 2024 and 57% in 2022. Nearly two in three people counted were outside any shelter: in a tent, a vehicle, or on the street. That share is rising not only because homelessness is growing but because shelter is shrinking: sheltered numbers actually fell, from 7,058 in 2024 to 6,536 in 2026, and the region lost 689 shelter beds between 2025 and 2026 (from 5,958 to 5,269), driven mostly by cuts to family shelter capacity. The gap between the two lines on the chart — the sheltered population — is closing from the wrong direction.
One caveat worth stating plainly, because it’s the most common way this number gets misread. The chart starts in 2022 on purpose. Since 2022, KCRHA and the University of Washington have estimated the unsheltered count using Respondent-Driven Sampling, a HUD-approved method that reaches people not connected to services. Earlier counts — the last was 11,751 in 2020 under the previous All Home street-count method — are not directly comparable, and stitching them onto this series would overstate the trend. Read the 2022→2026 climb; treat anything before it as a different ruler.
Source: King County Regional Homelessness Authority, 2026 Point-in-Time Count and Housing Inventory Count (initial release, June 2026). Count conducted January 29, 2026. Unsheltered estimates use Respondent-Driven Sampling (2022 onward), led by UW; not comparable to pre-2022 street counts. A comprehensive report follows later in 2026. Next count: early 2027.
The U.S. median age rose about two years over this stretch. King County’s rose 0.6 — from 36.8 in the 2009 estimate to 37.4 in 2024 (up 0.1 on the year). The county that contains Seattle and Bellevue keeps replacing the people who age out with younger ones who move in, the same in-migration story behind its population growth.
The suburban ring is a different picture. Snohomish aged 2.2 years to 38.6, and Pierce 1.8 years to 37.0 — still the youngest of the three, but closing the gap fast. All three remain below the U.S. median of about 39.
Recessions leave no mark. Median age is a slow-moving stock, and the 5-year smoothing blunts it further; the shaded 2009 and 2020 downturns pass without a bend in any line.
This is the age side of a broader urban-versus-suburban split. The immigrant share of the population is pulling apart the same way — the county changing fast, the city holding flat.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates — median age, table B01002 (B01002_001E), retrieved via FRED’s County Median Age release (King, Pierce, Snohomish). 5-year period estimates dated to the end year; consecutive vintages overlap, so read the trend, not the year-to-year wiggle. State downturns: Philadelphia Fed Coincident Economic Activity Index for Washington. Annual; the 2020–2024 vintage was released 29 Jan 2026, so the next (2021–2025) is due around the end of 2026.
A quarter-century ago, the city of Seattle was the more immigrant-heavy place: 16.9% foreign born in the 2000 Census, against 15.4% for King County as a whole. That ordering has reversed and then some. By 2024, King County reached 27.1% foreign born — up from 25.8% the year before and from 18.8% when the annual ACS began in 2005. The county’s foreign-born share is now nearly double the national figure (14.8%).
The city of Seattle did not come along for the ride. Its foreign-born share has wandered in a flat band — roughly 18% to 20% for two decades — and sits at 19.9% in 2024, barely above its 2005 reading. (The single-year city estimates are noisy; the 2008 dip to 15.9% is sampling wobble, not an exodus.) The widening gap between the two lines is the whole story: the people moving in are settling on the Eastside — Bellevue, Redmond, Sammamish — and across south King County — Kent, SeaTac, Federal Way, Tukwila — not inside the city limits.
This is the demographic counterpart to the median-age split: the suburban ring, not the core, is where the county is changing fastest.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-year estimates — Place of Birth by Nativity, table B05002 (foreign born B05002_013E ÷ total B05002_001E), for Seattle city, King County, and the United States. The 2000 figures are from Census 2000 SF3 (table P021). There is no standard ACS 1-year release for 2020. One-year estimates for a single city or county carry meaningful sampling error — read the trend, not the year-to-year wiggle. State downturns: Philadelphia Fed Coincident Economic Activity Index for Washington. The 2024 ACS 1-year was released in September 2025; the 2025 vintage is due around September 2026.
On Washington’s new April 1 estimates, the City of Seattle reached 823,400 in 2026 — up 6,800, or 0.8%, from 2025. King County reached 2,424,700, up 13,000, or 0.5%. Both grew, but the striking part is the deceleration: last year the city added 18,900 (2.4%) and the county 33,600 (1.4%), so 2026’s gains are roughly a third of the prior year’s pace.
For Seattle, 0.8% is the smallest annual gain since 2021, the pandemic-dented low. For King County, 0.5% is the weakest in over a decade — slower even than 2021. The county’s growth has stair-stepped down for three straight years while the city held near 2.4%; this is the first year the city has clearly joined it.
The long view is unchanged. Since 1990 the city has grown 60% and the county 61% — still nearly in lockstep, which is why Seattle’s share of King County has barely moved, from 34.3% to 34.0%. One soft year doesn’t bend a 36-year line. Whether it’s the start of a plateau or a one-year pause is the thing to watch in the 2027 estimate.
Source: WA Office of Financial Management, April 1 official population estimates (state, county and city, 1990 to present). Shaded bands: Washington economic downturns (peak-to-trough in the Philadelphia Fed Coincident Index for WA, FRED: WAPHCI). Annual; OFM releases the next April 1 estimate in late June 2027.