“To the extent that there is a story here about outmigration, it’s not really principally a story of high-income people fleeing Massachusetts,” said Kurt Wise, a senior policy analyst at MassBudget and the author of the report. “It’s a story of low- and middle-income households making that decision.”
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Nonetheless, the story line could change as more data becomes available. The data that MassBudget analyzed did not cover the period in which the so-called millionaires tax began taking effect.
Here are three things we learned from the report about how Massachusetts’ population is — and isn’t — changing.
No. 1: By the most recent measure, the Massachusetts population is still growing
According to US Census Bureau estimates, which covers the time period from July 2022 to July 2023, the Massachusetts population saw an increase of about 18,700 residents, about a quarter-percent uptick, the MassBudget report said.
About 11,500 of these new residents were a product of “net in-migration,” Wise said — in other words, more people moving into the state than out of it. The rest were due to new births in the state.
This data runs counter to the findings of the IRS, which tracks residents’ comings and goings by analyzing individual tax returns. The latest IRS figures, which looked at changes between returns that residents filed in the 2021 and 2022 calendar years, found that the state had a net loss of about 45,000 residents.
The conflicting data reflects different time periods and methodologies, Wise said — not to mention the muddling effects of COVID-19.
“Massachusetts, like many other states, was very much affected in terms of migration due to the pandemic,” he said. “This data reflects a period of rebound.”
No. 2: Most of those who are leaving are working-age adults
Fifty-five percent of the residents who left Massachusetts between 2021-2022 were working-age adults, 26-45 years old, which is disproportionate for their share of the overall population, the MassBudget analysis found.
This mismatch, said Wise, is “very likely due to challenges they’re facing in terms of high housing costs, high child care costs, higher education costs, desire for more investment in things like local public schools and transportation systems.”
No. 3: The majority of those leaving are not high-income earners
About one in six of the residents who left Massachusetts between 2021-2022 had incomes exceeding $200,000, the MassBudget report said, with the rest of those departing earning below that threshold.
“When you run the averages by group, you can see pretty quickly that for the income group above $200,000, their average income has to be well, well under a million,” Wise said.
And within the group of 26 to 45-year-olds who left Massachusetts during that time period, the report found more than 80 percent had incomes below $200,000.
In total, per IRS data, the Massachusetts outmigration during this time period represented a net adjusted gross income loss for the state of about $3.87 billion. The top states Massachusetts émigrés went to were Florida and New Hampshire, per IRS data.
Dana Gerber can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @danagerber6.
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Publish date : 2024-09-17 01:30:00
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