Massachusetts’s schools have recruited higher proportions of international students than colleges and universities almost anywhere else because of a demographic decline and the comparatively high cost of higher education here. But even before the second Trump administration, there were signs the bottom was falling out.
Economics
Posted inOpinion
Bill filed by Neal would devastate life sciences
THE BIOTECHNOLOGY and pharmaceutical sector in the Boston area is about to hit some rough water. According to the Brussels-based consulting firm Vital Transformation, the prescription drug price controls in […]
Posted inOpinion
All-electric homes are cheaper to build than fossil fuel residences
OUTSIDE THE STATE LEGISLATURE’S doors, our air was filled with wildfire smoke from Canada and extreme heat, while record flooding wiped out farms and livelihoods in western Massachusetts. Inside, lobbyists […]
Posted inOpinion
Awash in revenue, Beacon Hill says no to gas tax relief
THE NEW YORK STATE Assembly last week introduced their annual budget which included a state gas tax suspension. The New York proposal pushes for a portion of the state’s gas […]
Posted inOpinion
Playing catchup on rare earth metals
THREE YEARS AGO, my partners and I founded Phoenix Tailings in a Cambridge backyard, creating a process to refine mining waste into rare earth metals. These are the 17 different […]
Posted inOpinion
More workplace protections are needed
ON LABOR DAY, we celebrated working people, and the achievements of the union movement which make our families more secure and make our society and economy stronger. Among them: unemployment […]
Posted inEconomy
Reckoning coming as fed unemployment benefits ending
MORE THAN 300,000 Massachusetts residents will lose federal unemployment insurance benefits at the end of this week, and no one is sure what that will mean for them or the […]
Posted inThe Download
Mass Reboot: Home
The coronavirus pandemic has often served as a magnifying glass, accentuating and amplifying existing trends in our society. With housing, for example, COVID-19 showed us what we already suspected – […]
Posted inEconomy
Mass Reboot: Home
THE CORONAVIRUS pandemic has often served as a magnifying glass, accentuating and amplifying existing trends in our society. With housing, for example, COVID-19 showed us what we already suspected – […]
Posted inEconomy
Mass. economy roars back in 1st quarter
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE MASSACHUSETTS ECONOMY grew at a much faster pace than the national economy in the first quarter and the economic analysts at MassBenchmarks see that trend […]
Posted inOpinion
Spilka backs ‘moonshot’ to address caregiving crisis
What follows is an excerpt of Senate President Karen Spilka’s speech on Tuesday to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. I have been particularly struck by the statistics on the […]
Posted inEconomy
Mass. gasoline prices up 28 cents in last month
JUST A LITTLE over a year ago wholesale crude oil prices went into negative territory, meaning demand was so low and storage space so scarce that for the first time […]
Posted inOpinion
Working women need more supports
MID-MARCH marks the moment many of us were sequestered into our homes as a result of the coronavirus. We all made significant changes in our lives, and the lives of […]
Posted inUncategorized
Details released on $75m emergency sick leave program
THE HOUSE WAYS and Means Committee Tuesday evening released a bill that would create a $75 million program to expand emergency paid sick leave during the pandemic and would reduce […]
Posted inState House News Service
State pension fund gains $10b in 2020
FOLLOWING MARKET volatility and uncertainty at play through much of the first half of 2020, a strong second-half performance for the Massachusetts state pension fund — the largest six-month return […]
Posted inOpinion
Shecession means the jig is up
WOMEN ENDED 2020 with 5.4 million fewer jobs than they had in February 2020, prior to the start of the pandemic. December unemployment figures showed that employers cut 140,000 jobs in December […]
Posted inEconomy
Bill would let hotels assess guest fee
FED UP WITH what they see as years of state underfunding of tourism, some local tourism officials and hoteliers want to collect marketing money on their own – by charging […]
Posted inEconomy
Future of food delivery fees up to Gov. Baker
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER will be the final arbiter of a dispute between restaurants and food delivery apps over how much the apps can charge for providing delivery services. The economic […]
Posted inThe Download
New year will usher in 2018’s ‘grand bargain’
It’s been a tough year for low-wage workers, who were hit hard by the pandemic – losing jobs and income and facing housing and food insecurity. But in Massachusetts, changes […]
Posted inUncategorized
Let Mass. home bakers do their thing
RETIRED SALON OWNER and daycare provider Marcia Donnelly did not want to fight City Hall. She just wanted to sell home-baked sourdough bread from her kitchen in Southbridge. Homemade food […]
Posted inOpinion
Mass. should follow California’s lead on contractors
WITH THE 2020 Massachusetts election behind us, state lawmakers have returned to Beacon Hill to finish one unprecedented session, while also preparing to begin the next. Health care, policing, and […]
Posted inUncategorized
Fed chief: Stimulus package ‘sorely needed’
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S failure to approve another stimulus bill endangers economic recovery from the pandemic-inflicted recession, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston cautioned […]
Posted inOpinion
Let’s do away with real estate broker fees
FOR DECADES, the laws of supply and demand have weighed heavily toward landlords and the 3,000-plus real estate agents scattered across brokerage offices in Allston, Brighton, and Brookline. Historical market […]
Posted inOpinion
Essential workers need a bill of rights
THIS YEAR, Labor Day arrives in the crossfire of a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and a reckoning for racial justice throughout America, laying bare how vital working people are […]