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Boston Globe
20-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Census shows recent growth in most Mass. cities and towns
Some smaller communities expanded at higher rates. Stoneham added 1,452 people over the one-year period, a nearly 6.3 percent growth rate that led all 351 cities and towns. Among larger municipalities with at least 50,000 residents, the most significant population change was in Revere, which grew 2.94 percent. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Sixty-one communities lost population year over year. The biggest loss, both in terms of raw total and percent change, was Concord, whose population shrunk 181 people or roughly 1 percent. Advertisement Secretary of State William Galvin's office said most of the towns with population decreases were concentrated in western Massachusetts or Barnstable County. It appears Massachusetts is part of a larger regional trend. 'In 2024, the Northeast experienced population growth after years of steady decline, with rates ranging from an average growth of 0.1 percent in cities and towns with fewer than 5,000 people (a shift from the 0.3 percent average decline in 2023) to 1.0 percent average growth in cities with populations of 50,000 or more — five times higher than their growth rate during 2023,' the Census Bureau wrote in a news release last week. Advertisement Nationally, the largest average population growth was in the South, the Census Bureau said, while the western part of the country also saw increases and the Midwest experienced 'modest population growth.' The new municipal data build on statewide totals Thousands of people continue to leave Massachusetts for other states, but newly incoming immigrants have more than made up for it in recent years, the data show. From July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024, the Census Bureau reported that about 27,500 people decamped Massachusetts for another state -- down from 36,500 the prior year and 54,800 the year before that. In each of those years, international migration to the Bay State surpassed 72,000, climbing to 90,200 from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024. The UMass Donahue Institute previously called the 2023-to-2024 trend the Bay State's Beacon Hill has been closely watching migration patterns, especially as business groups and others warn of people leaving Massachusetts due to the state's high cost of living. Galvin's office echoed the Donahue Institute analysis last week, attributing the year-over-year growth to slowing domestic outmigration to other states as well as 'record levels of international migration.' Advertisement 'Accurate population counts are crucial for state and local governments, because they dictate federal funding for things like schools, transportation, and health care,' Galvin, a Democrat who is the state's 2030 US Census Liaison, said. 'If people are living in Massachusetts, using those resources, and contributing to our local economy, we must push back against any efforts to exclude them from the count.' From July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2024, the Census Bureau's Vintage series counts an increase in the Bay State's population of about 141,000 people or 2 percent.
Boston Globe
13-03-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
‘Stagflation' is the economy's worst nightmare. The trends in Boston should be a wake-up call.
But there are rumblings of a revival for the defining financial scourge of the 'Me Decade': stagflation. And we could get a sneak peek of that '70s show rerun. Stagflation is an extended stretch of rapidly rising prices and little or no economic growth. That's not happening now, and economists say it's a long-shot scenario. But the trend here is troubling: Consumer prices in Greater Boston and across New England are rising faster than the rest of the country even as the region's economy underperforms. Advertisement What's happening: Stagflation fears are on the rise because President Trump's on-again, off-again Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'We are in some pretty unique economic waters,' said Mark Melnik, director of economic and public policy research at the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 'It is hard to point to many historic analogs to what we are seeing with the policy responses and rhetoric coming out of Washington, and the markets are starting to respond as a result.' Catch up: Inflation heated up in February across New England, jumping 4.5 percent from a year earlier, It was the biggest increase in two years and underscored a troubling contrast to The January CPI reading for the Boston metropolitan area, the latest available, showed prices up an annual 3.9 percent, nearly a full point higher than the national rate and the second highest among metros, after Honolulu. Why it matters: Conditions are different today. The deficit is high, but so are interest rates. Inflation has been declining and the economy is growing. We haven't had a shock to the system like the oil embargo. Advertisement But recession worries are building again as the economy shifts into a lower gear and Trump hits the country's biggest trading partners with inflationary tariffs and threatens to widen 'If the prevailing policy uncertainty worsens and market volatility rises further, this could lead to a vicious feedback cycle onto the economy,' Gregory Daco, chief economist at professional services firm EY, said in a note. The big picture: Prices rose 2.8 percent, down from 3 percent in January, as declining energy costs moderated the biggest uptick in food prices since January 2024. Consumer prices excluding food and energy — a measure known as core CPI that is considered a better indicator of underlying inflation — dipped to its lowest annual pace since April 2021. Stock prices rose modestly after two days of losses. The S&P 500 gained 0.5 percent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.2 percent. Economic fundamentals 'remain disinflationary,' Daco said, but 'tariffs, confusion around trade policy, and tighter immigration policy mean the risks to inflation are tilted to the upside.' Zoom in: The risks are evident locally, with inflation reheating in metro Boston and across the six-state region. Elevated price increases are worrisome in a part of the country where the cost of living is already high. The Donahue Institute puts Massachusetts in the top five states for child care costs, energy prices, and home values. Moreover, growth in In the past year, the unusual suspects have been driving inflation faster than the national rate, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's These include housing, medical care, education (including tuition and books), and communications (including internet and cable TV). Final thought: While the specter of Nixon-era stagflation still haunts us, a lot would have to go wrong for it to reappear. Inflation is projected to slowly return to the Fed's 2 percent target — by 2026 or 2027, according to the Economic growth is seen slowing to about 2 percent this year, the Fed estimated, down from 2.8 percent in 2024. But Trump's commitment to tariffs is a giant wildcard. His pledge to reorder the US economy and its place in the world is a risky undertaking. There is a remote but real possibility that the chaotic rollout of import duties and deep cuts to the federal workforce and government spending just might trigger a shock that ends in financial crisis. Advertisement Larry Edelman can be reached at
