The challenges facing young people in Greater Boston were laid out today, though not in a single story but rather in several. The Globe has a front-page feature on the trials and tribulations of the region’s young adults, those aged 20 to 34, who now make up a larger share of Boston’s population (35 percent) […]
Demographics
Posted inPolitics
Baker’s demographic dilemma
Charlie Baker’s first run at the governor’s office was marked by an enormous 24-point loss among women. Since Baker’s 2010 loss, strong showings with women provided Massachusetts Democrats with decisive margins in a pair of US Senate races. Baker has made improving his standing with women voters one of the main thrusts of his current […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Embrace our differences, but eliminate inequality
Our cherished local accent – known as the Boston accent, really more a northern New England accent – was put on display recently by MassDOT marketing officials who brought attention to an important road safety issue by poking fun at our distinctive mode of speech (“use yah blinkah,” the signs say.) This is the accent […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The GOP’s demographic challenge
Republicans nationally have been licking their chops over the prospects of midterm election gains, with doubts about the Affordable Care Act the lead card the GOP will play in many races. But however bright the short-term outlook for the party might be, without a major reworking of Republican positions and platform planks the long-term picture […]
Posted inPolitics
Boston’s challenge for the GOP
The partisan divide between cities and less urbanized areas is growing into one of the defining characteristics of Massachusetts politics. The suburbs are often held up as the place where elections are won or lost, but a steady long-term shift in urban voting is rendering suburban voters less able to change the outcome. Cities’ relatively […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Mass. GOP’s urban challenge
The road to the Massachusetts governor’s office used to run through the belt of suburbs between Boston and Worcester. Now, it runs through cities. And that shift makes the state GOP’s bid to reclaim the governor’s office far more complicated than it used to be. In CommonWealth‘s new issue, online today, the MassINC Polling Group’s […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Breakfast special
“Do not adjust your television set.” With that, Linda Dorcena Forry dispensed to great laughter with the issue that has made her the lead character of late in Boston’s ongoing story of racial redemption and movement beyond its parochial, sometimes ugly, past. As the host of yesterday’s storied St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston, […]
Posted inPolitics
The blue-red color divide in Massachusetts
On a national political map, Massachusetts is reliably blue, a Democratic stronghold. The congressional delegation is all Democrat, the State House is overwhelmingly Democrat, and every constitutional officer is a Democrat. While Republicans occasionally break through (Scott Brown’s US Senate victory in 2010 or the string of Republican governors elected from 1990 through 2002), the […]
Posted inEconomy, Education
DOR deals with ‘silver tsunami’
The Massachusetts Revenue Department, facing a “silver tsunami” of retiring workers, is creating its own employee pipeline. Instead of posting a job and hoping for the best, the Revenue Department is partnering with Bunker Hill Community College to create two academic paths for students to follow to secure jobs with the agency upon graduation. One […]
Posted inPolitics
The numbers for the state, Boston show improvement
The minority hiring records of the state of Massachusetts and the city of Boston are both relatively good, a sharp contrast to most companies in the private sector. State records for fiscal 2012 indicate that nearly a quarter of the 44,445 executive branch employees are minorities, three times the percentage in 1983 when the Globe […]