massachusetts is not quite the public pension paradise that it’s often made out to be. In fiscal 2005, we ranked 15th in the total amount of paid benefits divided by the number of beneficiaries, which is rather modest given the high cost of living here. (“The pension system is not overly generous for typical employees,” […]
Robert David Sullivan
Posted inEconomy
Protection money
nothing is certain in life but death and taxes, and the one thing almost everyone thinks taxes should be used for is saving us from early deaths. Police and fire departments are almost entirely funded by local governments, but there are significant differences from town to town in how much they take out of the […]
Posted inPolitics
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster The Web site LegiStorm reports that Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank of Newton has logged more trips paid for by private sponsors (84) than any other member of Congress so far this decade. But his itinerary is strikingly different from the others on the Top 10 list, such as Stephanie Tubbs Jones […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
America’s 10 political regions redefined
UPDATE: November 2008 results. Also see my pre-election preview in America magazine. UPDATE: See charts on the voting history of each of the regions from 1948 through 2004 here. There are also maps specific to the 1948 election here, the 1960 election here, the 1968 election here, and the 1976 election here. Results from the […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
Down town
smart-growth policies are often associated with leafy suburbs in commuter rail territory (see Town Meeting Monitor). So it’s easy to forget that there are older cities in Massachusetts that already have all the right elements—high density, mixed-use zoning, extensive public transit—and have still fallen short of the urban village ideal. The city of Malden, where […]
Posted inEconomy
Not-so-prime spots
UPDATE: For more recent foreclosure data, go to the Head Count in our Winter 2009 issue. home foreclosures in Massachusetts continued to climb this spring—up 40 percent in May compared with the same period last year, according to the Warren Group. The map based on the number of foreclosures during the 180-day period ending on […]
Posted inHealth Care
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster Maybe it’s a subliminal reminder to do well in school, but girls’ names ending in “a” are all the rage in Massachusetts. According to the Social Security Administration, the top five names for newborn girls in the Bay State last year were Ava, Isabella, Emma, Sophia, and Olivia. Nationally, the top […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Brainstorms
we’re still in a state of invention, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Massachusetts ranked fourth in the total number of patents granted last year, outranked only by California, Texas, and New York. We’re third when the numbers are adjusted for population size, as on our chart. Perhaps more important, the Bay State […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
The public payroll
though state finances are back at a point where almost everyone agrees that spending must be brought “under control,” Massachusetts already has fewer government employees, when taking into account our size, than most other states. Part of this is because bigger states tend to get by with proportionately smaller staffs. But the Bay State is […]
Posted inEconomy
Money from home
UPDATE: To get FY 2010 data on the percentage of each community’s revenue that comes from property tax, download an Excel file or PDF. You can also go to the Department of Revenue’s data bank. Our maps and charts were created by combining the DOR’s spreadsheets on municipal budgeted revenues by source (which do not […]