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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.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Western Massachusetts population drops as state numbers rise
CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) – New state census data is showing most cities and towns have grown in population over the past year, but that's not necessarily true for communities here in western Massachusetts. List of Massachusetts agencies impacted by federal funding cuts by Trump Administration The estimates show that about four in five Bay State cities and towns had more residents on July 1, 2024, than a year earlier, fueling a nearly one percent statewide population growth. Most of the communities that lost population are here in western Massachusetts. Most of western Massachusetts is in orange, which means population decreased, alongside the blue increases in the eastern part of the state. It's mostly affecting Franklin, Hampshire, and Berkshire counties. While most of these communities are so small, the difference is just a few people, it's still an alarming trend. All of the towns and cities in Hampden County did go up. The town of Pelham in Hampshire County seems to be an outlier. It had a population increase of 5.6 percent, but in a town of just over 1,300, that's an increase of just 71 people. Data shows thousands of people continue to leave Massachusetts for other states, but incoming immigrants have made up for it. The UMass Donahue Institute said the Bay State experienced its largest annual population increase in 60 years from 2023-2024. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
30-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Latinos make up vast majority of new Massachusetts residents, report finds
'But for the growth of the Latino population here in the state, Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Advertisement Román said the Latino community, which now makes up 13.5 percent of the Massachusetts population, has become an important economic engine for the state and a crucial part of its long-term sustainability. The rapid growth of the Latino population has compensated for the loss of residents to other states, an exodus widely blamed on high housing costs, particularly in the Boston area. Last year, the state experienced its largest population increase in more than half a century — An estimated 90,000 immigrants came to Massachusetts between 2023 and 2024, according to the UMass Donahue Institute, many of them from Latin America. Last year saw the highest level of immigration to the state since at least 1990. Advertisement Tuesday's report, based on Census Bureau data, did not distinguish between immigration to Massachusetts and the domestic migration of Latinos from other states. In 2023, roughly 54 percent of Latinos who moved to Massachusetts came from other US states, with the rest coming from other countries, according to Ken Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire, citing ACS data. Related : The report also found that the Latino population in Massachusetts tends to be younger than the state as a whole, with 74 percent under the age of 45 in 2023, as compared to 56 percent of Massachusetts overall. More than a quarter of Latinos are under 17, according to the report. 'That is incredible,' Román said. She said young Latinos are 'driving growth, they're launching businesses, they're enrolling in college, and all at record rates. So these numbers will only continue growing.' Many people who have left Massachusetts in recent years are working-age adults, making the Latino arrivals crucial to the state's workforce. Related : Part of the influx of Latinos has come through the state's emergency family shelter system, which has housed But despite the strain on the shelter system, the report suggests that Latinos in Massachusetts represent a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. Latinos contributed $30 billion of the state's overall economic growth from 2014 to 2023, roughly a quarter of the total, per the report. Román said much of the growth was in high-skill, high-earning sectors, such as financial services. Massachusetts Latinos outpace their national counterparts in the education, health care, and administrative sectors, the report found. Advertisement 'There's this misconception that the only Latinos that come here are for low-level jobs, the quote unquote, 'unskilled labor,'' Román said. 'Part of the narrative that we also want to drive is that there are a lot of Latinos that come here to go to school and end up staying here.' Román said the report also underlined the importance of closing existing gaps in education and workforce training for Latinos. 'When I look at the present workforce and the potential for upscaling, making sure we're driving high-quality education opportunities for young kids who are Latino and who will be the future of our workforce, it's a huge incentive for us.' Camilo Fonseca can be reached at
Boston Globe
21-02-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
President Trump's policies on education and science are a threat to Boston's identity. Here's why that matters.
Together, the education and health care industries employ roughly a million people in Massachusetts — nearly a quarter of all wages. This so-called eds and meds sector — which has become the state's economic superpower in creating jobs, launching companies, and providing stability through recessions — is being rocked to its core as the Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress attempt to slash critical funding from the National Institutes of Health and Medicaid, and could throw billions of dollars in student loans and grants into flux. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Advertisement The potential fallout will be felt far beyond universities and hospitals, economists and business leaders say, because the sector is so integral to the state's economy and its competitiveness. For now, the proposed NIH cuts pose the most immediate threat because Massachusetts is the largest recipient of NIH funding per capita. (The state's institutions received about $3.5 billion in NIH grants last year to study cancer, Alzheimer's, and other diseases.) Related : That could not only jeopardize medical research and ongoing clinical trials but could have significant ramifications for jobs. One analysis projects that funding formula. The UMass Donahue Institute estimates that could lead to a loss of several thousand jobs, if not more, if Trump continues reducing other types of federal grants. 'This is a black swan event in many ways because it's so sudden and it's so encompassing,' said Michael Greeley, cofounder and general partner at Flare Capital Partners, a Boston venture capital firm that specializes in health care investments, referring to an unexpected shock to the economy. Greeley expects universities and hospitals to feel the financial pain first, while the life sciences industry will experience the effects in a few years as the pipeline of innovations and drug development slows down. Advertisement 'The pool of companies and startups might start to shrink,' he said. 'I'm hoping it's not like a fundamental reset.' Related : Eds and meds comprise by far the state's largest category of employment, accounting for 28 percent of the labor market, according to an analysis of federal data by UMass Donahue Institute. That encompasses everything from college professors and K-12 teachers to doctors and nurses and hospital janitors, though the lion's share comes from higher education and health care. The strength of the sector has also driven the growth of professional, business, and scientific jobs, which make up about 640,000 positions, or about 10 percent of overall state employment. Many of these roles, from lawyers to corporate scientists, emanate from the ecosystem of hospitals, universities, and venture capital that has fed the life sciences industry. The number of jobs in Massachusetts tied to research and development alone has doubled over the past decade, according to UMass Donahue, now making up 1 in 10 R&D jobs in the US. No one expects eds and meds to lose its dominance here, but there's a growing sense that the impact of cuts could ripple out across everything from commercial real estate to law firms to the state budget. That has policymakers, college presidents, and business leaders scrambling to preserve what they can. 'This is going to hurt us,' said state economic secretary Yvonne Hao. While the state economy has been solid, Hao said it's hard to predict the full brunt of the policy shifts coming out of Washington because the situation is so fluid. She believes Massachusetts is better positioned than others to weather the turmoil, especially after the state allocated nearly $4 billion of its own funds in an economic development package passed last fall to bolster key sectors like life sciences and climate tech. Related : Advertisement 'It's probably not enough to fill the entire gap left by the federal challenges, but at least we have some ammunition here that we can control in our own state,' said Hao. Even before Trump's return to the White House, the state's most important industries were facing economic headwinds. Colleges and universities have been bracing for a long-anticipated outsize impact in Massachusetts, home to Related : Meanwhile, health care is under enormous financial pressure coming out of the pandemic as costs have been rising faster than revenue. And Congress is now seeking Mass General Brigham, the state's biggest health system and largest private employer, recently announced the largest layoff in the organization's history that will lead to hundreds of job cuts. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Adding to the uncertainty is how much Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who serves as Trump's health and human services secretary, will push for changes disruptive to health care, and whether Linda McMahon, Trump's nominee for education secretary, can carry out his vision of abolishing the Department of Education. Advertisement 'Anything that chips away at the resiliency of eds and meds, chips away at the resiliency of the Massachusetts economy,' said Mark Melnik, director of Economic & Public Policy Research at the UMass Donahue Institute. For now, the focus is on fighting Trump's executive order to dramatically cap so-called indirect costs in NIH grants that cover expenses including rent, electricity, lab equipment, and support staff. Trump has proposed the NIH only cover 15 percent of indirect costs, down from close to 70 percent for some institutions. A federal judge in Boston has temporarily blocked the measure after 22 attorneys general, Related : With so much at stake, university and business leaders have been working with the Massachusetts congressional delegation on strategies to protect NIH funding — though with Democrats out of power in Congress, the state's political leverage is at a low point. Marty Meehan, the former congressman who is president of the University of Massachusetts, is making the case that medical research shouldn't get caught up in partisan politics. 'It doesn't save Democratic lives, Republican lives, independent lives. It saves American lives,' said Meehan. Business leaders want to impress on Trump that NIH grants are a major economic driver. The advocacy group United for Medical Research estimates that every dollar invested in NIH-funded research generates 'It's ironic someone who should be trying to promote the economy not understand that attacking the Massachusetts portion of spending is going to have a dramatic impact on everyone else,' said Jay Ash, CEO of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, a group that represents some of the state's largest companies. 'As goes the Massachusetts research economy, so goes the rest of the country.' Related : Advertisement Massachusetts became a medical research hub thanks to a potent combination of academic institutions like Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and UMass Chan Medical School, working closely with teaching hospitals like Mass. General, Brigham & Women's, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and UMass Memorial Health. The synergy attracted NIH grants starting in the 1950s, driving breakthroughs and eventually spawning a biotechnology cluster. Venture capital seeded startups, but a key inflection point came in 2008 with the passage of a $1 billion initiative under then-Governor Deval Patrick that poured money into life sciences and cemented the state's reputation as a global leader. Similar investments have continued under the Baker and Healey administrations. Cambridge's Kendall Square, pictured in 2023, is the heart of Greater Boston's life sciences ecosystem. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff John Maraganore, the former founding CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, fears Trump's proposed cuts will weaken the life sciences industry and give a competitive advantage to China. Maraganore doesn't have a problem with scrutinizing how grant money is spent; he just doesn't agree with the Trump administration's approach. 'It is foolhardy and dangerous to apply a Musk-ian, kitchen sink approach to this very complex topic,' said Maraganore, referring to Trump adviser Elon Musk's blunt methods to shrink bureaucracy. 'I really would urge the administration to take a step back and think longer term around how to do this in a more thoughtful, methodical manner, where the net result is not a destruction of something which is so important, frankly, to US competitiveness in the world.' Related : The sense of urgency to protect eds and meds is palpable from campuses to corner offices. What's at stake is no less than Massachusetts's ability to attract and retain the best and the brightest. 'There is an envy around the world for what we have. It's part of who we are, it's part of the brand,' said Jim Rooney, CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. 'We would all suffer if we can't maintain the status we have.' Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at
Boston Globe
06-02-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Mass. must build 222,000 homes over the next decade to rein in housing costs, state says
Building the needed homes will not be easy. Advertisement 'The primary factor contributing to the state's housing crisis is that there are not enough homes to meet the needs of people living here,' the report said. 'For more than two decades, Massachusetts' growth in housing demand has outpaced additional supply, resulting in low vacancies and intense demand for the homes that are available.' The figure was developed by the Healey administration's newly-formed Housing Advisory Committee as part of the state's first comprehensive housing plan, and encapsulates the projected number of homes that will be needed by 2035 to accommodate the state's existing population, newly formed households by younger people who are seeking homes for the first time, and people who move here. Workers at an apartment building under construction in Revere in 2023. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff The committee, along with researchers at the UMass Donahue Institute, assumed modest population growth over the next decade when calculating the projection. But even if the state's population remains flat, Massachusetts would still need to build some 73,000 homes over that period to account for existing demand and newly formed Gen Z and Millennial households. If the state were to build 222,000 homes by 2030, it would ease the immense pressure on the housing market, the advisory committee said in a report Thursday. But it would not solve the housing problem altogether. The state's public housing portfolio is still at risk of losing units, and many homes are at growing risk of flooding due to climate change, the report found. Advertisement And the report did not specifically account for the need for housing that's affordable to lower-income households. It did identify a set of strategies to help fill the supply shortage and maintain the state's existing housing stock. The state should continue to simplify zoning rules to make it easier to build, and identify state-owned parcels that could be developed in the short term. It should also dedicate more resources to the preservation of existing affordable housing, and streamline efforts to repair the deteriorating state public housing portfolio. Andrew Brinker can be reached at
