Editorial: Want to end poverty in Mass.? Don’t drive away wealthy

If you want to help people in poverty, don’t drive the wealthy out of state.

That might be something the state senators in the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities should keep in mind after they advanced a sweeping bill going full bore at reducing the state’s poverty rate.

Sen. Sal DiDomenico told the State House News his proposal (S 3095) “is a compilation of many bills that have already been filed.” According to his office, the bill, as originally filed, included provisions that would increase the Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children cash benefits for pregnant people, families and caregivers; increase Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children cash benefits; codify related benefits and allowances; and bar the government from taking any amount of child support payments from low-income parents.

His office also said the bill would direct the state to replace Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cash benefits “stolen by criminal rings through skimming or phishing”; ensure access to free menstrual products in public schools, homeless shelters, prisons and county jails; raise farmworker wages to at least the state’s minimum wage; establish a “baby bonds program”; and “enhance” the attorney general’s ability to “ensure companies pay their employees the wages they deserve and hold employers accountable when they steal workers’ wages.”

It’s a tall order, and an impressive one. But the hurdle isn’t just getting it on the Senate’s agenda before the July 31 deadline, it’s how to pay for it.

The idea of front-loading assistance appears sound: helping people escape poverty means they won’t need to rely on social services down the line. But it will still take a sustainable revenue source to keep it all going.

And Massachusetts has been shooting itself in the foot when it comes to keeping revenue inside state borders.

According to Moneywise, Massachusetts millionaires took $4.2 billion in income out of the state in 2023, new Internal Revenue Service data revealed.

As reported by Bloomberg, that’s an 8% increase from the year before, and it comes just as the state began enforcing a new 4% surtax on incomes above $1 million. Higher-income households are now accounting for a larger share of total departures from the state. In 2023, top earners accounted for roughly 70% of total income outflow. That doubles their share from just a few years earlier.

We need to keep them, and their tax payments, here.

But that won’t happen if efforts to lower taxes are met with derision, and the notion that tax breaks only benefit the very rich. The deep-pocketed set that’s heading to tax-friendlier states are gifting their new home turf with a cumulative windfall, even if the individual tax amount is lower than the Bay State.

The same goes for companies who see better opportunities elsewhere.

The senators working on anti-poverty measures have some great ideas, and they should have a budget to implement them. Lifting people up from poverty uplifts the state.

But we can’t pay the bill if we keep driving out high-earning taxpayers. To help the poor, we must keep the rich.