The latest look at the Massachusetts economy and its place in the national picture was full of paradoxes, the analysts at MassBenchmarks said this week – the labor market is strong, but economic growth has ground to a halt.
The statewide unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent in June, while employers added 3,400 jobs following a significant downward revision to the May figure, labor officials announced Friday.
The program legislative leaders placed on the table Thursday would offer one-time, $250 payments to middle-income taxpayers across the state, a move lawmakers pitched as a more targeted way to relieve the pressure of crushing inflation and soaring gas prices than temporarily lifting the state’s gas tax.
Drivers may not be feeling much relief at the pump, but gas prices are coming down.
Recession and inflation concerns conspired in June to leave Massachusetts employers on the verge of switching to a pessimistic posture.
After rising slightly in each of the previous three months, business confidence in Massachusetts took a significant tumble in May.
The unemployment rate in Massachusetts dropped slightly in April as employers added 10,500 jobs, state officials reported Friday.
Associated Industries of Massachusetts reported Monday that employers grew more confident in April despite high inflation and the economic contraction in the first quarter.
Almost exactly two years to the day that the coronavirus pandemic was declared an emergency in Massachusetts, the state’s top public health officer painted a brightening picture of the pandemic Wednesday and said she is optimistic about the trajectory of the state’s response.
Economic growth in Massachusetts accelerated from the third to the fourth quarter of 2021, with real gross domestic product increasing at an 8.2 percent annualized rate.
The Massachusetts unemployment rate in December plunged beneath 4 percent and state officials on Friday said employers have added back 537,000 jobs since employment levels bottomed out in April 2020.
Nearly two years since the first case of COVID-19 was officially detected in Massachusetts, the biggest question hanging over the state’s economy remains the continued uncertainty of the global pandemic, an economics and policy researcher said Wednesday.
As the omicron variant continues to drive rapid spread, some public health experts warn that the Baker administration has not done enough to get additional shots into arms.
More than 1 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Massachusetts, according to state Department of Public Health data released Tuesday, as the omicron variant drives the latest surge in numbers.
After hosting an oversight hearing that top state health officials skipped, high-ranking lawmakers are now calling on Gov. Charlie Baker to consider a menu of pandemic management options, including quarantine and isolation shelters and a pause on school mask mandate exemptions.
Economic analysts at MassBenchmarks said they still have “significant concerns” after taking a closer look at the labor market, inflation and inequalities in unemployment in the Bay State.
Gov. Charlie Baker said his administration has secured over 2 million rapid COVID-19 tests and will be distributing them in the state’s communities “hardest hit” by the pandemic.
The World Health Organization says it could still take some time to get a full picture of the threat posed by omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus as scientists worldwide scramble to assess its multiple mutations.
Count Gov. Charlie Baker among the public officials who are eagerly awaiting answers to crucial questions about the latest COVID-19 mutant and whether it could alter the nature of the pandemic and the public health response.
The economic impact of poor leaf peeping seasons could also be consequential. Officials throughout New England have said fall tourism brings billions of dollars into those states every year.
