Early last year when the coronavirus pandemic hit, the nature of work was transformed within days. For some that meant replacing office chairs with couch cushions or leaning into $600-a-week unemployment checks. For others it looked a lot scarier.
Dream Nail Lounge in Lynn was thriving the first few months of 2020. Owner Yajaira Toribio said business was steady and she was optimistic the salon was on a trajectory of growth. Then the state shutdown slammed the door on business. Suddenly her own livelihood and that of her staff was teetering on the edge of an invisible cliff.
Toribio was plagued by anxiety. She couldn’t sleep. She had a family to support and she knew that her staff, many of whom were contractors, weren’t eligible for unemployment. “I was just thinking … people’s livelihoods are on my hands,” she remembers.
More so than for others, workers in customer-facing jobs were hit with uncertainty, health risks, and financial devastation. This week’s episode of Mass Reboot, a Codcast series examining how COVID-19 affected Massachusetts and how the state is adjusting moving forward, explores who got to stay home during the pandemic and who had to strap on masks and step back out.
Work-from-home privileges were largely drawn along socioeconomic lines. Survey data from the MassINC Polling Group showed that by the end of March 2020, 87 percent of workers with advanced degrees reported having worked remotely, a figure that shrank to 34 percent for those without a college degree. Only 44 percent of people earning less than $50,000 a year and 40 percent of hourly workers worked from home, while 75 percent of those making over $100,000 and 74 percent of salaried workers did so.
The return to work has been similarly uneven. Many of those who could stay home during the pandemic found they didn’t miss their commute, or even the community of the office, enough to return. JD Chesloff, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, said that a survey of the business organization’s members showed nearly 80 percent anticipate a hybrid work model going forward.
Flexible work options have even become a bargaining chip between employers and potential employees. Chesloff said one of the first questions people interviewing for a job are now asking is whether they can work on a hybrid model.
Remote work may be here to stay, but the switch has a ripple effect. Many businesses rely on their close proximity to densely populated buildings, where tides of workers guarantee foot traffic and, thus, customers. The thinning of urban areas is especially bad news for small businesses overall and Black-owned businesses in particular, according to Segun Idowu, CEO of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts.
Idowu said that the majority of businesses owned and operated by people of color rely on in-person customers. This is the community that lost out when sidewalks cleared, but these owners were also less likely to benefit from government assistance in the aftermath.
The Paycheck Protection Program that emerged under the CARES Act in March 2020 highlighted the fraught relationship between Black-owned businesses and banks. A MassINC Polling Group survey at the beginning of last summer showed that small businesses and businesses owned by people of color were less likely to apply and be approved for PPP loans.
Similarly, Idowu said, when the state set aside $10 million to aid small businesses, word spread faster among the white community. By the time entrepreneurs of color applied, the minimal funding had been gobbled up by others.
Even as life stabilizes, businesses that rely on in-person transactions aren’t on solid ground. Especially now, with the surge of the Delta variant, Idowu worries that another wave of the virus could permanently shutter many more doors.
What many hoped would be a steady trajectory toward a new normal has proven much less predictable, leaving a myriad of questions for business owners and leaders. What will happen to those just getting by if Massachusetts masks back up? Will employees return to offices in the fall? If not, will workers migrate to more desirable climates to Zoom in from temperate verandas? What will happen to all the empty office space companies no longer need?
“Bottom line,” said Libby Gormley, host of MassReboot, “Massachusetts is looking at dramatic changes.” She forecasts a hybrid future with a drop in business travel, less predictable swells of traffic for urban storefronts, and lots more Zoom time.
LILY ROBINSON
FROM COMMONWEALTH
Cape costs: Housing prices are exploding on Cape Cod — up 38 percent over last year — and Sen. Julian Cyr, who represents the Cape and Islands, said at a legislative hearing on Wednesday that the region now faces an “existential crisis.” While housing prices are soaring across the state, the problem is compounded on the Cape by a rush on vacation homes by well-heeled buyers. That’s putting further upward pressure on prices and further limiting the supply of housing for year-round residents. Cyr has filed a bill — he describes it as a “toolkit” of measures — with several provisions aimed at addressing the crisis. They include providing property tax incentives to landlords renting at affordable rates and a proposal for a study of zoning and other code changes to allow “tiny” homes of 600 square feet or less. Read more.
No write-off yet on giving: More than two decades ago, voters approved a measure providing a state tax deduction for charitable giving, but it will be at least another year before donors might be able to actually claim the write-off. The deduction was available for just one year, 2001, following its approval by 72 percent of voters on the 2000 ballot. Lawmakers have since kept it on hold, continually citing budget pressures. Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed lawmakers’ move to again put a hold on the tax break, saying nonprofits hurt by the pandemic are desperate for the additional giving the deduction could spur and state coffers are more than flush. But the House overrode his veto on Wednesday and the Senate is poised to follow suit. Exactly who would benefit most from the write-off is the subject of disagreement. Jim Klocke, CEO of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, said low- and moderate-income donors would benefit, but leaders of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center and Codman Square Health Center cofounder Bill Walczak say the benefit would “overwhelmingly” go to the state’s highest income households. Read more.
OPINION
Green economy needs diversity: Jobs in the renewable energy sector will be growing at a huge pace in coming years, all the more reason to ensure training programs and policies geared toward ensuring diversity in all parts of its workforce, says Aisha Francis, president and CEO of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology. Read more.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
BEACON HILL
Gov. Charlie Baker says he’s holding off for now on reinstating any statewide restrictions in response to the increase in COVID cases, though he said he’s considering a mask mandate in K-12 schools this fall. (Boston Globe) In a letter, 200 doctors and medical experts urge Baker to bring back mask mandates in schools. (Salem News)
In a rare move, the Governor’s Council rejects Gov. Baker’s nomination of Sherquita HoSang of Springfield to the Parole Board, citing concerns about her preparation and qualifications. (State House News Service)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
The intersection of Mass. Ave and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston has been saturated with addiction and suffering for years. The city’s mayoral candidates want to decentralize health resources concentrated there to abate the issue. (WGBH) Residents and elected officials are up in arms over plans to convert hotel rooms at a Best Western hotel near the intersection into transitional housing for people in recovery. (Boston Herald)
St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester plans to cut back some services and lower its patient capacity next week as the nurses’ strike enters its fifth month. (Telegram & Gazette)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
A bipartisan agreement in the Senate has cleared the way to advance President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill, though it still faces several potential obstacles before becoming law. (New York Times)
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton says he’ll work to block Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins’s nomination as US attorney for Massachusetts, charging that the reform-focused prosecutor “won’t stand up for the victims” of crime. (Boston Herald)
ELECTIONS
Douglas George, the real estate developer husband of Boston City Councilor and mayoral candidate Annissa Essaibi George, has had a lot of trouble with city officials and tenants over his properties — and his wife appears to have run afoul of state ethics laws in weighing in on a zoning case he was connected to. (Boston Globe)
Messaging problem: Fall River mayoral candidate Cliff Ponte described the city’s top job as “ceremonial” in a memo to employees of his real estate firm. (Herald News)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Requiring workers to be vaccinated remains more the exception than the rule among Massachusetts employers, but that could change as calls grow for vaccinate mandates. (Boston Globe)
EDUCATION
The Framingham School Committee is calling on the state to issue formal recommendations on how to mitigate risk of COVID-19 transmission for in-person learning this year. (MetroWest Daily News)
These are the Massachusetts colleges requiring vaccines for students and staff this fall. Over half of the state’s 107 largest colleges and universities will require a shot for students, but fewer will ask faculty and staff to get a jab. (WBUR)
ARTS/CULTURE
It’s a wrap: 2022 will be the last season for the GBH-produced children’s show “Arthur” featuring its namesake aardvark along with his friends and family. (Boston Globe)
TRANSPORTATION
Some lawmakers are pushing to make MBTA bus rides free to help low-income riders. (Gloucester Daily Times)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
Democratic senators are calling on Gov. Baker to cut ties with the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., which recently produced Boston’s future of work report. The firm recently agreed to a $573-million settlement for its role in the opioid crisis. (The Enterprise)
Rise of the Moors, the anti-government group involved in an armed standoff with police earlier this month in Wakefield, is suing the Massachusetts State Police and others for defamation, discrimination, and deprivation of rights. (Associated Press)
A former Lynn police officer charged with beating a man in his cell takes a plea agreement in which he will have his case dismissed if he is treated for PTSD related to his military service, completes community service, and stays out of trouble. (Eagle-Tribune)
Agencies are seeing an uptick in calls from domestic violence victims seeking help post-pandemic. (Telegram & Gazette)
A Black probation officer resigns from Hampden County Probate and Family Court, citing racism in the workplace. (MassLive)
PASSINGS
Bob Turner, a highly respected journalist — and thoroughly decent soul — who spent his entire news career at the Boston Globe, died Tuesday at age 78. (Boston Globe)