Massachusetts
Snowstorm prompts parking bans in these western Massachusetts communities
LUDLOW, Mass. (WWLP) – Several communities across western Massachusetts have put parking bans in effect for Saturday’s snowstorm.
Snow is likely on Saturday with potential accumulation of one to three inches. Temperatures will reach the low 30s and although most roads should remain manageable, drivers should allow extra travel time due to the expected snow.
Ludlow
No on-street parking from 12 a.m. Saturday until 12 a.m. Sunday.
Russell
No on-street parking from 8 p.m. Friday until 8 p.m. Saturday.
22News will update this list as new parking bans come into the newsroom.
Local News Headlines
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Massachusetts population growth slowed in 2025 due to a slowdown in the international immigration fueling growth in recent years, new data from the Census Bureau showed.
The population of Massachusetts grew 0.2% from July 2024 to July 2025, Census data released Tuesday showed, up to 7,154,084.
Like much of the country, Massachusetts’s slowing growth marked a reversal from post-pandemic upticks — 0.9% in 2024 and nearly 0.7% in 2023 — largely driven by an influx in migrants.
The trend reflected what Census analysts called a “historic” decline in immigration across the country. The U.S.’s growth collectively slowed “significantly” to an uptick of just 1.8 million or 0.5% in 2025, the slowest growth since the early pandemic.
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” said Christine Hartley, Census assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
Populations of the U.S., all four census regions and every state except Montana and West Virginia saw their growth slow or their decline accelerate in 2025, the Census said in a release.
The slowdown comes after a 1% population jump in 2024, the Census stated, the fastest annual growth since 2006.
For Massachusetts, according to a report from the Pioneer Institute based on the Census data, growth is “now entirely dependent on immigration.”
“Absent immigration, Massachusetts would already be losing population,” said Aidan Enright, Pioneer’s economic research associate and author of the report. “Domestic out-migration rose again in 2025, and that’s a clear signal that the state is becoming less competitive as a place to live, work, and do business.”
From 2022 through 2024, the Pioneer report states, Massachusetts averaged over 76,000 net international migrants per year, driven largely by an “unprecedented surge in humanitarian immigration.” In 2025, the number of new immigrants dropped to just over 40,000, about the same as pre-pandemic averages.
As immigration drops, Pioneer stated, Massachusetts lost more than double — over 33,000 — the number of residents than it added in 2025, a number “far above the state’s historic average.”
Pioneer argued the out-migration is due to “weak job growth, high costs, and an uncompetitive business climate,” and the trends were “temporarily masked” by immigration influxes. The report cites data showing the state is one of four with fewer private-sector jobs than before the pandemic and has fallen behind national average GDP growth for “several consecutive quarters.”
The dependence on net international migration in Massachusetts reflects similar trends in several northeastern coastal states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, according to Census analysis.
Each had negative net domestic migration and more international migration than positive natural change from births and deaths, the data show.
The Pioneer report argues the population trends call for policy to address housing affordability, cost-of-living pressures, taxes, and business climate.
“With an aging population and low natural population growth, Massachusetts cannot afford to lose residents to other states,” Pioneer states. “As federal policy aims to reduce immigration further in 2026, the Commonwealth faces growing risk that population stagnation will translate into slower growth, tighter labor markets, and diminished economic opportunity.”
The cleanup continues across Massachusetts after Sunday’s storm dumped almost two feet of snow on us, but life is slowly returning to normal, which means students are headed back to school.
There were at least a dozen school delays reported in Connecticut Wednesday morning, but kids across the Bay State were getting back into their classrooms at the normal time after some had two snow days, including in Boston.
As everyone gets back into their routines Wednesday with school and work in the city, they’ll have to contend with narrow sidewalks and giant mounts of snow blocking corners.
Huge mounds of snow can be seen across New England, with roads and sidewalks made narrower.
There is still a lot of cleanup left to be done in South Boston, where snow cleanup can be quite the struggle.
“I didn’t go to work today, but I have to go to work tomorrow. But I’m going to wait for one of the commuters to come in, that I know, and I’ll leave when they pull in. Then when they go home, I can pull back in. That’s the way you got to rig the system,” Southie resident Steve Ruiter said.
Some cars have yet to even be dug out, and if you do still have shoveling to do, remember to take it easy. UMass Memorial took care of eight people on Tuesday who went into cardiac arrest after shoveling snow.
Massachusetts
Exodus from Massachusetts continues, as more people moved to other states in 2025 – The Boston Globe
That marked a jump from the prior 12-month period, when revised federal figures show the state had a net loss to other states of nearly 19,200 people. That new revision was actually good news for Massachusetts, as previous government data from a year ago showed a loss to other states of 27,500 in the 2023-2024 period.
In the prior two years, Massachusetts experienced even larger outflows — roughly 35,400 and 48,000 — amid a broader acceptance of remote work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Massachusetts has routinely ranked in the top five states for domestic outmigration in recent years, and last year was no exception: It finished fifth behind California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey in the loss of people to other states. Of the New England states, only Maine and New Hampshire saw positive domestic in-migration.
Still, the Massachusetts population has been growing slightly, hitting an estimated 7.15 million as of July 1 of last year. Massachusetts is still drawing more international immigrants, though at a far slower pace than in previous years when officials said increasing numbers of migrant families were stressing the state’s family shelter system.
The outmigration data has long been a politically valuable tool, depending on which argument you’re trying to make. Governor Maura Healey, who is seeking reelection this year, has regularly touted the importance of keeping residents and businesses in — and drawing new ones to — Massachusetts as part of a pledge to attack the state’s high cost of living and housing. The first-term Democrat went as far as pointing directly to migration data early in her tenure as a measuring stick.
And last year, her administration highlighted the numbers, which showed the losses dwindling from the pandemic-fueled highs, as good news.
This year’s ebb, meanwhile, could complicate her pitch of making Massachusetts a beacon for working families.
Healey and her Republican opponents have differed widely in framing the economic direction of the state, and her early campaign messaging this year has focused largely on promoting her “affordability” agenda and, to an equal degree, attacking Trump as a chaos agent who bears blame for the rising prices residents feel in their day-to-day life.
“I hope it can serve as a catalyzing data point,” Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said of the latest outmigration number. “It just hopefully shows you like everything in the policy realm, you can’t take your foot off the gas.”
Boston University finance professor Mark Williams found in 2024 that the top driving factors behind domestic outmigration from Massachusetts are taxes, housing costs, and health care expenses.
Immigration from other countries has helped offset the losses, but that could be tougher under the Trump administration’s crackdown. “Now we’re looking at public policy, White House policy, that’s going to restrict immigration flow,” Williams said. “This will create a challenge for Massachusetts.”
Economist Don Klepper-Smith has warned about what he calls the “three T’s” hurting states like Massachusetts: taxes, temperature, and traffic. (The Tax Foundation think tank recently ranked Massachusetts 43rd in terms of tax competitiveness.)
Now, Klepper-Smith says he would add a fourth “T”: the targeting of blue states for federal spending cuts.
“I think that creates a difficult situation and a slippery slope for fiscal health in New England,” said Klepper-Smith, formerly based in New England but now semi-retired in South Carolina. “There’s going to be upside pressure on property taxes. … There’s going to be growing calls for regionalism, growing calls for efficiencies. Every dollar counts in this economy. Every dollar counts.”
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto. Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
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