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Incomes in Mass. grew last year, but it might not feel that way – The Boston Globe

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Incomes in Mass. grew last year, but it might not feel that way – The Boston Globe


But given the soaring costs of so many everyday goods over the last few years, many people here may not feel wealthier than they did in 2022 — even if, on paper, they are.

“It’s not as much of a problem as it was a year or two ago,” said Mark Melnik, the director of economic and public policy research at the UMass Donahue Institute. “But I don’t want to be tone-deaf to the fact that prices that are rising slower [are] still hard on people who are lower income.”

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So, why did Massachusetts lead the pack last year? To some extent, it was likely a bit of a fluke, said Melnik, since the top states — which also include New Jersey and Maryland, both of which had edged out Mass. in 2022 — are all within about a thousand dollars of one another. Alan Clayton-Matthews, senior contributing editor of the economics journal MassBenchmarks, said the uptick may have been fueled by the pandemic-driven boost to high-paying industries.

“I wonder if some of it was the big COVID-related surge in medical science here, and pharmaceuticals,” he said. “That’s waning now, but the incomes in that sector, probably a lot of those were received in 2023.″

Whatever the reason, the number, economists said, belies more concerning trends taking place in Massachusetts — not least of which is the substantial gap between the lowest and highest earners.

The share of the lowest-income households in Massachusetts shrank last year — 26.6 percent of households earned less than $50,000 in 2023, compared to 28.3 percent in 2022 — while the ranks of the most affluent grew, with more than a fifth of households earning upward of $200,000 in 2023.

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“Our Commonwealth, sadly, is becoming a place where you are either very wealthy and are doing okay, or you are really struggling to make ends meet,” said Kim Janey, former acting mayor of Boston and now president and CEO of the nonprofit Economic Mobility Pathways. She pointed to an uptick in Massachusetts child poverty levels, which rose from 11.5 percent in 2022 to 12.6 percent in 2023, per Census data.

While this “hollowing out of the middle,” Melnik said, is a nationwide trend, he believes it’s thrown into particularly sharp focus in Massachusetts due to its preponderance of higher-paying industries — such as biotech and professional consulting — that drive up overall median wages.

“Because we have such a concentration in some of those industries, we end up seeing this deeper bifurcation when it comes to that spread between the high and the low end,” said Melnik.

And even for those Massachusetts households that fall on the higher end of the income range, their wealth doesn’t pack the punch it would elsewhere in the country due to the high cost-of-living in Massachusetts, with its outsized costs for everything from child care to energy to housing.

“The experiences of a middle-income family or lower-middle-income family, they’re going to look different than what they might be in other parts of the US,” said Melnik.

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To be sure, the state is not an economic monolith. While areas in the Boston metropolitan region — Newton, Cambridge, Somerville — all saw median incomes well into the six figures, cities further from Greater Boston, such as Fall River and New Bedford, saw earnings well below the statewide average.

map visualization

Households in Springfield, the poorest large municipality in Massachusetts, had a median income of just over $47,000 — less than half of that in the city of Boston. By contrast, Newton, the most affluent large municipality, clocked in a median household income of over $185,000.

“The median for the entire state doesn’t necessarily tell the story about where some of the struggles may occur in different places,” said Melnik.

To close these gaps, both Clayton-Matthews and Janey pointed to reviving pandemic-era supports for lower-income families, such as the expanded Child Tax Credit. To bolster the middle class, Melnik said the state should continue investments in growing industries, like clean tech and artificial intelligence.

“To whatever extent we can be at the front lines of some of these emergent things, I think it helps us be positioned to create jobs across the income spectrum,” he said.

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Janey, who served as the city’s acting mayor in 2021 amid the height of COVID and its financial aftershocks, warned that even with encouraging economic indicators, the state should not fall into complacency.

“I think we could easily convince ourselves that in Massachusetts, because incomes have gotten higher, that we’re okay, but we know that is just not the case — particularly when we are talking about families who are experiencing poverty and who have other multiple challenges,” she said. “We cannot be fooled or lulled into thinking we’ve accomplished something here.”


Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6. Daigo Fujiwara can be reached at daigo.fujiwara@globe.com. Follow him @DaigoFuji.





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Massachusetts

Mass. House votes to set new rules for DiZoglio’s audit

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Mass. House votes to set new rules for DiZoglio’s audit


Twenty-eight lawmakers dissented Wednesday as the Massachusetts House voted to set new terms around what state Auditor Diana DiZoglio would be able to review in the legislative audit voters authorized her to carry out in 2024.

Almost all House Democrats voted for the measure, which also proposes to make more state government records accessible to the public. Three Democrats — Cambridge Rep. Mike Connolly, Attleboro Rep. Jim Hawkins and Fall River Rep. Alan Silvia — joined the body’s 25 Republicans in voting no.

Speaker Ron Mariano said the bill responds to an ongoing call from voters for more transparency out of Beacon Hill and provides a path forward in lieu of a what he called “politically motivated audit conducted in violation of the Constitution.”

Leaders of the House and Senate have resisted DiZoglio’s audit push, arguing that a probe by the auditor’s office would run afoul of the separation of powers laid out in the state Constitution, bringing the legislative branch under the review of a piece of the executive branch.

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“We are not accountable to any constitutional officer,” said Rep. Mindy Domb, an Amherst Democrat. “We are only accountable to our constituents.”

Taunton Rep. Lisa Field, a Democrat in her first term, said she was among the 72% of Massachusetts voters who backed the audit ballot question in 2024.

“Due to legitimate concerns and questions about constitutional privileges and separation of powers, we have been stuck on this audit issue for more than a year,” Field said. “Let’s not be like Washington, D.C. and accept such gridlock — not about the audit and not about public records. Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good progress.”

The House’s bill would authorize DiZoglio to review what it defines as the “administrative functions” of the Legislature, going back to the 2021 fiscal year. Those areas include the adoption of annual budgets, official audits of the House and Senate by independent firms, spending by both chambers, and the execution of any financial settlements with lawmakers and employees.

It would also newly apply the state’s public records law to the governor’s office, and create a process by which people could request and receive certain legislative files.

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Massachusetts is currently the only state where the Legislature, governor and judiciary all claim to be exempt from the public records law.

Warren Republican Rep. Todd Smola described the process that led up to Wednesday’s vote as opaque in and of itself. Mariano last week said the House would take up what he called comprehensive transparency legislation, but did not say when or what, specifically, the bill would do.

The bill was circulated to members of the House Ways and Means Committee around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, and committee members had a little over a half hour to vote on whether to advance it. Smola, the ranking Republican on the committee, said during that 34-minute window, “we had members on both sides of the political aisle that were calling each other back and forth to say, ‘Can you explain this portion to me?’”

“We are so much better than the process that has unfolded,” he said. “And for the sake of people that are asking us for transparency, that is not transparency. That’s the opposite of transparency.”

Rep. Michael Soter, a Bellingham Republican, said he was particularly concerned with a part of the bill that removes the courts from settling disputes between the auditor and the Legislature.

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He said that by setting its own rules around an audit, the House would be “ensuring the auditor can only see exactly what we allow her to see and nothing more.”

It’s not clear yet if the Senate will pass the bill. Last week, state senators voted to turn over a limited set of documents to DiZoglio. The documents the Senate plans to provide mirror the records she would be allowed to review under the House bill.

Asked if he expected the Senate to agree to the legislation, Mariano on Tuesday said only, “I talked to the Senate.”



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French-Mediterranean Eatery Charts Opening In Boston

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French-Mediterranean Eatery Charts Opening In Boston


BOSTON, MA — An international restaurant group with locations across the globe is preparing to open its first Massachusetts restaurant this year.

LPM Restaurant & Bar, a French Riviera-inspired restaurant founded in London, is set to open on the second floor of the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street in Back Bay, according to Four Seasons. The hotel lists the restaurant as “Opening Summer 2026,” while the Boston Business Journal reported the restaurant plans to open in September.

The Boston restaurant will mark LPM’s debut in the Northeast and its third U.S. outpost, following locations in Miami and Las Vegas, according to a Four Seasons announcement.

LPM, also known as La Petite Maison, was founded in London in 2007 and is known for French-Mediterranean food, Mediterranean ingredients and dining rooms influenced by Belle Époque design.

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The business operates locations in London, Dubai, Miami, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Riyadh, Limassol, Doha, Mykonos, Kuwait, Boston, Maldives and Bangkok.

Four Seasons said LPM will take over the space that formerly housed One Dalton’s breakfast concept, One + One. The restaurant will join other dining options at the hotel, including Zuma and Trifecta.

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Massachusetts high school under investigation after teachers diagnosed with breast cancer

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Massachusetts high school under investigation after teachers diagnosed with breast cancer


A Massachusetts high school is under investigation after “several” teachers have been diagnosed with breast cancer or precancerous conditions.

The state Department of Public Health is set to visit Uxbridge High School on Thursday to “conduct a series of air quality tests,” to determine whether the multiple cases are potentially connected.

Superintendent David Ljungberg and Principal Michael Rubin alerted families and district staff on Monday of the “sombering news,” after Uxbridge High School’s graduation over the weekend.

“We are writing to inform you about a concern we are investigating at Uxbridge High School,” Ljungberg and Rubin stated in the letter. “Several female teachers have been diagnosed with breast cancer or precancerous conditions over the past few years.”

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“It is, of course, possible that these multiple cases are not connected to one another,” the leaders added, “but out of abundance of caution, we are looking into any environmental factors at the school that may be a factor in their diagnoses.”

The 123,000-square-foot school, with an enrollment of roughly 600, was constructed in 2012 at a cost of $45 million, including a $22-million state reimbursement.

Uxbridge school leaders say they notified the state Department of Health and local health board as soon as they became aware of the cases, seeking “counsel about how best to proceed.”

“Massachusetts DPH officials have indicated that there is no evidence of immediate danger in the building and no reason to limit access to or use of the facility at this time,” they wrote in their letter. “In fact, the public health officials have commended our decision to approach them with these concerns, our readiness to partner with them in support of the evaluation process.”

Health officials are assessing the school’s interior and exterior to “ensure there are no issues with the infrastructure that would present risks (including electrical, plumbing, mechanical, HVAC, and other systems)” and the indoor and outdoor air quality on campus.

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The superintendent and principal said that state officials have ruled out water supply as a “risk factor” after “thorough testing.”

“The team has reached out to the women who have been diagnosed, requesting data to evaluate whether there may be a connection among their cases,” Ljungberg and Rubin wrote. “We are grateful for their cooperation.”

They added that the state has said discovering an environmental “smoking gun” is “rare” in workplace investigations.

“However, even if a direct causal link is not established,” the leaders wrote, “the administration is utilizing this process to rigorously test the building and guarantee that it meets all safety standards moving forward.”

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