IN THE TRANSITION to clean energy, low- to moderate-income homeowners in Massachusetts have the odds stacked against them. Our state has the second-oldest housing stock in the country, along with some of the highest utility prices.  

A study from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy shows that low-income Black, Hispanic, and Native American households face dramatically higher energy burdens – spending a larger share of their income on energy bills – than the average household. At the same time, this historically expensive market means more homeowners are seeking to improve where they already live instead of purchasing a new house. 

Programs for those types of energy improvements have largely focused on electrifying or decarbonizing units in larger multifamily buildings rather than on single-family homes — even though 1-4 family homes count for 60 percent of building emissions. Plus, higher-income borrowers tend to be the ones to take advantage of existing incentive programs, while low-income communities are vulnerable to predatory lending practices — particularly amid the confusing nature of solar leasing programs.  

Given that Massachusetts wants to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, we need to make clean energy improvements possible for every homeowner. We can’t afford to leave anyone behind. 

The answer: flexible, innovative financing options that empower homeowners — the ones who had been excluded from the chance to upgrade their homes — to make energy improvements that save money and cut emissions.  

Because of its ubiquity and quick return on investment, rooftop solar is an easy choice. When Nectar Community Investments designed and tested our Solar Plus pilot program in 2023, we had a chance to see what worked. The program included decarbonization assessments and subsidies, and three homeowners purchased solar panels and made other required energy-efficiency upgrades or retrofits required to get their homes ready.  

The Massachusetts Community Climate Bank is on the right track with the Energy Saver Home Loan Program, a new $20 million program that launched in April 2024 to help low- and moderate-income homeowners make clean energy improvements to their homes. After our Solar Plus pilot, we became an early participating lender in the Energy Saver program. We’re proud to partner with the Healey-Driscoll Administration, MassHousing, and others on this sustainable approach to financing green infrastructure. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s Solar for All program is expected to be released this summer, and we look forward to participating in it. 

We’ve closed our first two homeowner loans through Energy Saver, but we know there’s more work to do. Just in our home city of Lawrence, there are more than 400 units heated by electrical baseboard and more than 2,000 units heated with oil, making them potential candidates for electrification and solar.  

Climate change is disproportionately harming these homeowners, and they need options to keep from falling behind. Flexibility and creativity in financing are exactly what we need to meet the moment before us. Our future depends on it.  

Glynn Lloyd is the executive director of Nectar Community Investments, a community development financial institution headquartered in Lawrence. He also serves on the Commonwealth’s Energy Transformation Advisory Board.

The post In the fight for a more sustainable future, we can’t afford to leave underserved communities behind  appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college; free MBTA service; right-to-shelter;  rent control; supervised injection sites; school library books; reparations;  voter ID requirements; a moratorium on prison construction; and limiting investments in natural gas infrastructure.)  

The Proposal 

Enact a universal basic Income plan to ensure that every household in Massachusetts has a minimum monthly income to cover essential living expenses. 

Background 

Universal basic income (UBI) is an anti-poverty and income stability proposal intended to ensure that all households have a guaranteed income with few, if any, strings attached.   

Five cities in Massachusetts have launched limited pilot programs with monthly stipends up to $500, to evaluate the impact on recipients, especially with regard to food security, health, and employment.  State Sen. Jason Lewis has introduced a bill to establish a five-year state-sponsored pilot for 1,500 people to ensure recipients have a monthly income from all sources that is “at least equal to a living wage,” which for a single-adult with two children would average about $11,250 (pre-tax) in Massachusetts, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. 

A form of UBI, called the negative income tax, was proposed by free-market economist Milton Friedman in the early 1960s as a way to put cash in the hands of poor people without the need for large bureaucracies to manage anti-poverty programs. President Richard Nixon, with advice and advocacy from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, borrowed Friedman’s idea as the basis for his Family Assistance Plan, which would have replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, but it was rejected by Congress in 1972.   

A related approach, called the earned income tax credit, was first enacted by Congress in 1975 to provide low-income workers with supplementary income through a refundable credit against their federal tax bill. Similarly, in 1997 Congress passed the child tax credit to help pay for childcare to enable parents to work or go to school.   

The EITC and CTC have been expanded over the years and some states, including Massachusetts, have enacted their own versions to supplement the federal benefits. The federal EITC is worth up to $7,800, with Massachusetts adding up to $3,100. The maximum federal CTC benefit is $2,000 per child ($1,400 of which is refundable for families that don’t pay federal income taxes), to which Massachusetts adds up to $440. 

Although the idea of a universal basic income has resurfaced periodically over the years, it has gained political traction over the past decade, especially during the COVID pandemic when the  federal government provided billions of dollars in additional cash assistance and tax credits to displaced workers and low-income families. 

Bumper Stickers and Sticking Points 

End Poverty, Now!: Poverty is not a bug, but a feature of American capitalism. The free market is inherently rigged against poor people, limiting their opportunities for employment or forcing them into low-wage, mostly part-time jobs with no benefits. The accelerating pace of technological change is making a bad situation worse, not just for poor people, but for the middle class, too. As a result, the only solution to poverty and financial instability is to ensure every family has a government guaranteed income.  

No More Handouts!:  Cash welfare payments inevitably discourage people from working and create patterns of dependency that are passed on from generation to generation. Increasing the size of welfare checks and extending them to people who are already self-sufficient only serves to undermine personal responsibility and deepen a sense of entitlement, sapping the country of the hard-working, entrepreneurial spirit that has made it the world’s most successful economy. 

Evidence-Based Case in Favor 

The animating idea behind a universal basic income is that by establishing a financial floor under every household, federal and state governments can simplify the current patchwork of cash and in-kind benefits for low-income households, thereby increasing participation of eligible families and reducing the negative impacts and perverse incentives of “cliff effects,” wherein recipients lose public benefits as their income rises.   

At the same time, a guaranteed income promises to create greater household financial stability and security, especially in light of long-term wage stagnation and the ongoing disruption of labor markets due to technology and globalization, thereby enabling families to better plan for their future while reducing food and housing insecurity and creating a better environment for raising children. 

To date, the largest and longest running guaranteed income programs have been implemented in economically developing countries with high levels of deep poverty, such as Prospera in Mexico and Bolsa Familia in Brazil, both of which have produced positive results in terms of health indicators, educational outcomes, employment, and inter-generational economic mobility. 

More recently, a growing number of pilot programs have been launched in US cities, typically providing families with monthly cash grants of $400-$1,000. From this pool of data points, some promising findings are emerging.  

Importantly, the majority of expenditures resulting from UBI payments go for basic needs, like food, housing, transportation, and health care, according to aggregated data from over 30 US pilots compiled by Stanford University’s Basic Income Lab. In no case does it appear as if cash grants have been used for frivolous purposes, let alone self-destructive ones, such as drugs or alcohol. 

Here in Massachusetts, the Shah Foundation sponsored a 2020-21 pilot in which 2,000 Chelsea residents received $400 per month via debit cards. A study of the program by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston found that about three-quarters of the funds were spent at supermarkets or grocery stores and other food retailers. 

A similar program in Cambridge provided low-income, single-parent households with $500 per month for 18 months. Recipients “reported higher incomes and lower income volatility” than a control group, according to a study conducted by the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania, contributing to a lower housing cost burden and greater food stability.  

Besides the positive direct financial effects associated with UBI, researchers consistently find indirect benefits related to mental health, family stability, and educational outcomes. For example, according to researchers at the Penn center, the children in the Cambridge UBI “treatment group” saw positive educational effects, such as higher grades and fewer absences. 

All these studies point to consistently positive effects of these UBI pilots, even though the monthly stipends have been relatively small, and the duration of the pilots has been short. 

A more recent large-scale example of the potential impact of cash grant programs is the expansion of the federal child tax credit during COVID. In 2021, low-income families received a fully refundable tax credit of up to $3,600 per child and child poverty dropped by over 40 percent, lifting over 2 million children out of poverty.  After the CTC expansion lapsed in 2022, child poverty rates doubled.  

Evidence-Based Case Opposed 

Universal basic income proposals can be terribly expensive and perhaps more important, most studies of UBI programs have shown little, if any, positive impact on employment and earnings.  Similarly, although there is strong evidence that these initiatives raise household income and improve living conditions, they do not appear to help families escape poverty. 

According to a 2019 analysis, a nationwide UBI program that pays $12,000 per adult per year,  phasing out at the median income level, would likely increase the annual fiscal impact of the federal social welfare programs they replace (excluding health care and Social Security retirement benefits) by over $900 billion or 250 percent.   

Here in Massachusetts, the Department of Transitional Assistance estimates that there are about 700,000 recipients in the Commonwealth of SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) and/or TAFDC (Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children) cash grants. Taken together these programs provide the average participating household with about $12,500 per year in benefits – not counting additional funds low-income households can access through federal and state CTC and EITC refundable tax credits, which average over $5,000 combined.  

If Massachusetts were to provide additional cash grants on top of existing federal and state benefit programs to get all households to the poverty line (pegged by the federal government at close to $80,000 statewide for a family of three) it would cost the Commonwealth billions of dollars. The pilot program proposed by Sen. Lewis would be even more expensive, since it ties UBI payments to a “living wage,” which averages close to $135,000 per year for a single-parent family of three in Massachusetts, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. 

But that’s not all. Most UBI proposals are designed to go beyond low-income families. As a result, they would include more numerous working- and middle-class households that would end up receiving the bulk of additional resources, even if cash grants were gradually phased out as earned income increases.   

UBI programs that narrowly target low-income families would be cheaper, but they would present the same “cliff effects” as the existing social welfare system, since any additional earned income would reduce public cash grants, thereby discouraging work.   

Notwithstanding the potential costs of UBI, there’s little evidence to suggest that they enable, let alone encourage, the surest pathway out of poverty, namely work.  

A recent randomized controlled trial of two privately funded three-year pilot programs in Dallas and Chicago found that a $1,000 per month stipend caused “a 3.9 percentage point decrease in labor market participation. Participants reduced their work hours as a result of the transfers by 1-2 hours/week and participants’ partners reduced their work hours by a comparable amount. Among other categories of time use, the greatest increase generated by the transfer was in time spent on leisure.” 

The potential for negative effects on employment – especially full-time employment – not only undermines the likelihood of escaping poverty in the near term, it also raises the risks of ongoing inter-generational dependency.   

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground 

Poverty rates in America have long been among the highest in the economically developed world, with little movement since the 1970s except in response to the ups and downs of the overall economy, despite several rounds of policy reforms. In many respects, UBI proposals are a natural reflection of these frustratingly stagnant trends.   

The difference of opinion over UBI generally comes down to what’s valued most by either side of the argument: reducing the effects of poverty now or increasing self-sufficiency in the future. 

There’s no solution that’s been shown to do both together and, unfortunately, neither are there cost-effective approaches that have even been able to achieve either one separately. While the current patchwork of social services and income supports is overly complex and expensive to operate, as a practical and political matter the best near-term option may be to pursue incremental improvements, rather than sweeping transformation.   

EITC, CTC and SNAP appear to have the biggest impact on reducing childhood poverty. EITC directly incentivizes work by supplementing earned income, while CTC and SNAP directly address the basic needs of children and families. CTC, which is the largest anti-poverty program targeting children, also fully phases out at relatively high income levels, thereby mitigating some of the “cliff effects” associated with increased earnings. 

Less than 80 percent of eligible EITC and SNAP households participate in those programs, while over 90 percent receive CTC benefits. Fully aligning or even consolidating all three programs (or at least EITC and CTC) would simplify and improve access, as would more efficient or automatic methods for enrollment. Other reforms related to eligibility, work or education and training requirements, and the phase-in and phase-out rules could also be considered. 

Regardless of the path forward, it seems impractical for Massachusetts to make significant changes to social welfare programs on its own, including the implementation of some version of UBI, without the full participation and leadership of the federal government. 

James Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker. 

Data: 

• Poverty rate in MA (2024): 10.4 percent (39^th in the US) 

• Median household income in MA (2025): $89,645 (2^nd in the US) 

• Percent of MA population enrolled in Medicaid (2025): 27.2 percent (23^rd in the US) 

• Projected Fiscal Impact of MA Earned Income Tax Credit (2025): $341M 

• Projected Fiscal Impact of MA Child and Family Tax Credit (2025): $460M 

• Average annual SNAP benefit per MA household (2023): $4,020 

• Average annual TAFDC benefit per MA household (2023): $8, 532 

• Overall public welfare spending in MA per capita (2022): $4,545 (1^st in US) 

Sources and Resources: 

US Census Bureau:  https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html 

US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service: https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap 

Internal Revenue Service:  https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-individuals-what-they-mean-and-how-they-can-help-refunds 

Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:  https://itep.org/ 

Peter G. Peterson Foundation: https://www.pgpf.org/issues/social-programs/ 

Stanford Basic Income Lab:  https://basicincome.stanford.edu/ 

Center for Guaranteed Income Research:  https://www.penncgir.org/ 

MIT Living Wage Calculator: https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/25/locations 

The post Should Massachusetts implement a program providing universal basic income?   appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS PAST WEEKEND, news of a huge and unexpected loss in Massachusetts politics rippled through my phone: Phil Johnston had passed away. As soon as I heard, I was stopped in my tracks — and immediately thought about breakfast.  

Just shy of 25 years ago, Phil Johnston was the new chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. I was a college student running the Young Democrats of Massachusetts from a fax machine on a folding table in my studio apartment.  

A lot of party chairs would have ignored someone like me. Not Phil. He called me up and invited me for a breakfast meeting at the Parker House.  

I don’t think I had ever had a breakfast meeting before, and I had most definitely never been to the Parker House — let alone with someone who was a regular there and who greeted almost every other power player in the room as he made his way to the table.  

I had moved to Massachusetts from rural Pennsylvania maybe two years before, not knowing a soul and having this vague idea that I was interested in politics. It’s an understatement to say I was intimidated at that first meeting. 

During our breakfast, Phil put me at ease. He told stories of his days organizing as a young person. He cracked jokes. He not only asked me my opinion and for my ideas, but he listened. And he wanted to know how he could both support our work with the Young Dems, and also me personally.  

He let us use the conference room in his company’s office building, and always magically made sure pizza was waiting for us when we showed up. He donated to the organization. He encouraged me to run for a seat on the Democratic State Committee, and when I won put me on committees that exposed me to all sorts of people and types of work within the party.  

Later, when I ran for office in Brookline and beyond, he was always in my corner — loudly and enthusiastically, with his signature hearty laugh and a little bit of bluster. 

Of course, Phil did so much for so many — on a macro level as well as for countless individuals. It seems that everyone who knew Phil has a story to tell.  

Amy Rosenthal, now the executive director of Health Care for All, was just getting her sea legs in Massachusetts politics back in the day when she was introduced to Phil by her then-boss at the health care nonprofit Community Catalyst, the legendary Rob Restuccia. That meeting, while she was a lower-level staffer working for a big local figure, turned into decades of having Phil as her cheerleader.  

Amy lights up when describing what it meant to have someone with his resume have faith in her, especially at an early stage of her career as a young woman making her way in the health care policy world in the Commonwealth.  

“Phil was just one of those constants in my career,” said Amy. “And his confidence in me gave me that little extra bit of confidence in myself.”  

Wakefield Town Councilor Jonathan Chines is a fellow former Young Democrat, who spent a summer while in graduate school working for Phil’s firm. Jonathan points to Phil’s instinctive support of young people, giving freely of his time and advice, and centering youth voices.  

When the Supreme Judicial Court handed down its landmark 2003 marriage equality decision, Phil sought out a statement from the Young Democrats to include in the official party response — a platform that was not commonly given to the party’s young activists.  

Of course, Jonathan heard more than his fair share of Phil’s incredible stories, talking a blue streak about Bobby Kennedy or another political legend. You never knew when a conversation about work would turn into a laughter-filled stroll down memory lane.

“He was so passionate about the work, but also so much fun to be around,” said Jonathan.  

For me, Phil’s simple act of taking me seriously — when I was young, unconnected, and inexperienced, but idealistic and ready to get to work — was so powerful. All these years later, I still remember every detail about that breakfast. I know where we sat. I know what I ate. But mainly I know that this man who could have easily dismissed me instead decided to take me seriously, encourage me, and invest in me. 

On Sunday the Massachusetts political world will come together to celebrate Phil’s life. I will be there, thinking about Phil’s example. Phil understood that young people aren’t just the future of the party or the nation, they’re a vital part of our present. For that – like Amy and Jonathan — I am forever in his debt.   

Jesse Mermell is president and founder of deWit Impact Group. She’s a former member of the Brookline Select Board and served as communications director under Gov. Deval Patrick. 

The post Why I’ll always remember my Parker House breakfast with Phil Johnston appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

MASSACHUSETTS FAMILIES ARE facing skyrocketing energy bills, and the Trump administration’s reckless energy and trade policies are making it worse.

Already, some Bay Staters are paying double what they did last year on their energy bills, largely thanks to an aging gas system struggling to respond to extreme weather fueled by climate change. And in New England, where approximately 10 percent of electricity and 80 percent of gasoline and diesel fuel come from Canada, Trump’s on-again, off-again approach to tariffs is creating significant uncertainty and instability in the energy market. 

The last thing Massachusetts families need is an administration lurching from one headline-driven policy to the next.  

In March, President Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a lower 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy imports, with certain exemptions. If just the 10 percent tariff level on energy imports from Canada is fully implemented, Bay Staters could foot more than $370 million per year in additional costs, and New Englanders could be out over $1 billion.  

The temporary halt in March of electricity exports on a key transmission line carrying primarily hydropower from Quebec to New England underscored just how interconnected Massachusetts and the broader region are with Canadian energy.   

Then, earlier this month, Trump announced broad tariffs on top of those already in place. On Wednesday, he backed down and paused some of their implementation for 90 days. Once they go into effect, these tariffs will disrupt supply chains, shrink paychecks, and drive up energy costs across the country. The increasingly high tariff on China, and general uncertainty around the tariffs, is likely to still do just that.  

Yet this isn’t just about today’s energy bills — it’s about the future of our energy system and our planet. In Massachusetts, the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat. Cities like Boston are enduring more frequent extreme heat days and record-breaking temperatures. 

Sea level is projected to climb as much as four feet by 2070, threatening homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure from Cape Cod to the South Coast. And heavy rainfall is overwhelming stormwater systems and exacerbating environmental injustices in places like the Mystic River Watershed. These escalating impacts hit hardest in communities already grappling with unaffordable energy bills, aging infrastructure, and limited resources. Without urgent action to curb emissions and build resilience, the consequences — to lives, livelihoods, and our economy — will only grow. 

Tackling climate change requires a comprehensive energy strategy that invests in cost-effective and quick-to-deploy renewables, safeguards community health, and boosts resilience. Trump’s haphazard trade war — coupled with attacks on renewables and executive orders expediting oil and gas production and exports — does none of that.  

His tariffs exempt the oil and gas industry — the very industry that donated $1 billion to his campaign. And as oil and gas executives further invest in the dirty energy that fuels the extreme weather, consumers will only spend more on heating and cooling their homes while the wealthy continue to profit.  

Just as Massachusetts families must not be left at the mercy of chaotic trade policies, volatile fossil fuel markets, and greedy oil executives, neither should they be left at the mercy of utility profit seeking or price-gouging suppliers.  

While Bay Staters struggle to pay for heat, multibillion-dollar utility companies continue to hike rates and rake in massive profits for their shareholders, largely thanks to misaligned incentives for investor-owned utilities. At the same time, certain competitive electric suppliers disproportionately target low-income households and communities of color with tactics that lure many into contracts that promise savings but end up costing more.    

Families deserve long-term strategies that lower costs, ensure energy security and resilience, and protect ratepayers. That means deploying renewable energy and energy efficiency, upgrading our grid, and ensuring policies that serve working families — not corporate profits.  

While state officials work to provide immediate relief to consumers, we must fully invest in energy assistance that meets the scale of the crisis. In Massachusetts, more than 150,000 families depend on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to heat and cool their homes each month.  

My Heating and Cooling Relief Act would expand LIHEAP and ensure more families can afford to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Yet the Trump administration just eliminated the federal staff responsible for LIHEAP — increasing the risk that more families will be forced to choose between paying their bills or putting food on the table. We must protect energy assistance for low-income households as energy prices increase.   

Massachusetts families shouldn’t have to bear the costs of Trump’s trade war and corporate greed. We must break our dependence on expensive and polluting fossil fuels by accelerating the transition to clean energy — no matter what Trump and his Big Oil barons try to do. As Massachusetts continues its climate leadership, I will keep fighting in DC for policies that put renewables over fossil fuels and people over profits — not the other way around. Together, we will deliver the energy security and affordability our communities deserve.  

Edward Markey is a US senator from Massachusetts. He is a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and co-author of the Green New Deal resolution.  

The post Energy prices are soaring in Massachusetts. Trump’s tariffs are making it worse.   appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

JUST MONTHS into Donald Trump’s second term, Massachusetts nonprofits face seismic changes for the sector. The president and his administration have frozen federal funding for nonprofits, restricted whom nonprofits can serve, and threatened the status of individual nonprofit organizations. Under the guise of “decreasing waste,” efforts to reduce the federal workforce jeopardize a critical relationship with nonprofits that ensures Americans receive crucial services.

It makes for an uncertain moment for frontline nonprofit workers who provide services like housing assistance, health care, legal aid, food access, child care, and arts and educational programs – all services considered “essential” during turbulent times like the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we saw during the pandemic, the accelerating demand for services without increases to salaries led to high burnout and turnover across the sector, disrupting the delivery of vital services to communities across the country. Once again, we are at risk of losing these essential services and the workers who provide them.

Despite these pandemic lessons, we have failed to fix the salary and compensation problems that drive nonprofit professionals out of the sector during times when we can least afford it. Today, 22 percent of the nation’s 12.7 million nonprofit workers experience financial hardship. With a higher-than-average cost of living in Massachusetts, the situation is even more dismal for the state’s 550,000 nonprofit workers.

Recent data from TSNE’s Valuing Our Nonprofit Workforce report, supported by the Boston Foundation, shows that almost two-thirds of nonprofit workers in the Commonwealth who provide essential services may not earn enough to make ends meet. This reality runs counter to Elon Musk’s misleading claims of self-enrichment across the sector. Thousands of nonprofit workers providing services in Massachusetts often are forced to rely on safety net services for their own survival.

They turn to organizations like Bridge Forward Fund, a nonprofit that provides cash assistance to Massachusetts professionals to cover basic needs during destabilizing emergencies and wrap-around services that promote economic mobility.

Cindy, a nonprofit employee providing administrative and direct care support at one of Boston’s biggest hospitals, shared her experiences, which encapsulates the reality for many Massachusetts nonprofit workers.

A single mother of two who fled domestic violence, Cindy works full-time to provide for her family. In her nearly 10 years at the hospital, she earned promotions that came with increased pay and responsibilities. Still, her income was low enough that she relied on benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and health coverage through MassHealth.

Her most recent promotion, however, came with a salary increase that made her ineligible for these programs. In other words, an unintended consequence of her decade of hard work was the “cliff effect.” While she has health insurance through her job, she pays extra to get coverage for her children to match what they had under MassHealth. Cindy says the new expenses reduced her limited savings to cope with emergencies, plan for retirement, support her children through college, build wealth, or see a future for herself in the sector.

Stories like Cindy’s are increasingly common for nonprofit workers throughout the country. Women in the sector are especially vulnerable. In the Commonwealth, women lead around two-thirds of nonprofit organizations, employing a workforce that is around three-quarters female.

Despite improving gender pay equity in the sector, women of color hold the lowest-paid jobs and fewer positions of leadership compared to white men and tend to run organizations with access to fewer resources. Even with increased cost-of-living adjustments, front-line and even middle management workers across the nonprofit sector, overrepresented by people of color, remain underpaid and undersupported.

The problem lies in nonprofits’ limited budgets. Nonprofits of all sizes struggle to balance budgets amid growing demands for their services and rising operating costs. Societal conditions and public policies, often beyond organizations’ control, limit their ability to pay staff living wages.

Inflation, reduced giving, anti-aid amendments, restrictive grantmaking practices, and the end of pandemic-era investments in the sector are shrinking budgets. A recent study by the Urban Institute shows that federal funding freezes may affect 73 percent of nonprofits in the Commonwealth.

It is unclear how Gov. Healey’s proposed caps on charitable giving deduction would impact the nonprofit sector. Lessons from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which similarly reformed deductions on charitable giving, suggest the governor’s proposal would weaken nonprofits and their ability to adequately compensate nonprofit staff.

The ripple effects of government policies continue to punish the already precarious state of the nonprofit workforce. A 2023 report by the Provider’s Council, Massachusetts’s largest human services membership organization, estimates that one-quarter of the state’s front-line human services positions are vacant, as high burnout rates and low wages make filling these positions impossible.

TSNE’s report shows that despite significant salary increases for direct care counselors, the median salary remained $11,000 below the state’s median wage and well short of living wage benchmarks. For dedicated workers like Cindy, even career advancement and salary increases can’t close the wage gaps driving people out of the sector.

That illustrates a tension regarding nonprofit work. On the one hand, society expects nonprofit staff—who make up 17 percent of the Massachusetts workforce—to sacrifice wages for the opportunity to advance altruistic causes. On the other hand, professionals need high enough salaries to provide for their families.

Studies show that nonprofit workers are increasingly prioritizing financial stability, resulting in sector turnover. Resourcing nonprofits so they can increase staff salaries would help attract and retain workers who provide timely delivery of high-quality services.

During the three years of working with Cindy, Bridge Forward Fund has helped her avoid eviction, afford basic needs, pay utility bills, insure the car that gets her to work, and envision a future for herself and her family. These interventions have helped Cindy continue her work in the sector supporting people in her community. But we can’t expect a system built on emergency aid alone to support the hundreds of thousands of nonprofit workers who are not being paid a living wage.

Investing in nonprofits’ workforce increases the sector’s resilience during uncertain times and, as a result, strengthens communities across the Commonwealth.

Carlos Muñoz-Cadilla is a senior associate focused on nonprofit sector infrastructure at the Boston Foundation. Luisa Peña Lyons is CEO and founder of Bridge Forward, which helps individuals and families experiencing financial hardship with multi-year financial and coaching support to propel them toward economic stability and greater wealth.

The post Trump is making the challenges facing nonprofits even tougher appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

PAYMENT IN LIEU of taxes, or PILOT, provides reimbursement to towns and cities for lost revenues from tax-exempt land and property within their boundaries. In rural parts of the state, a major source of PILOT reimbursements are state forests.  

Reimbursement payments to towns are based on a complicated formula, which has changed over the years, that includes the appraised value of the property and the latest three-year statewide average tax rate. That’s where the problem begins.  

Communities represented by the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts—a public body established in 2018 state law and led by 20 towns in the northwest corner of the state—have been acutely aware of something that has come to be known in Massachusetts municipal circles as the Plymouth-Savoy conundrum.  

This prototypical example illustrates the inequity in the current formula by comparing the coastal town of Plymouth and the Berkshire County town of Savoy. Though the two communities have similar acreage in the program through state forests, the PILOT payment for Plymouth is nine times that of Savoy (in FY24, this was $1,210,586 versus $132,040).  

In January, state Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s office and the Division of Local Mandates released the report Pursuing Equitable State-Owned Land Reimbursements for Municipalities, which recommends, among other things, a funding floor to address systemic inequity in the PILOT formula.  

According to the report, the median reimbursement rate per acre in the state is $127, but there are wide disparities in the rates paid to different communities. In Franklin and Berkshire counties, the median rate is $32 and $33, respectively, with some towns paid far below those levels. Hawley, for example, a town in Franklin County, is paid $10 per acre, while Monroe, another Franklin County town, receives just $5 per acre. At the other end of the state—and the PILOT reimbursement spectrum—Norfolk County’s median payment is $408 per acre. 

The valuation of these lands based on property values specific to the communities they are in does not consider the harder-to-monetize benefits these public spaces provide, while simultaneously bringing local impacts and stressors to roads and public safety. What’s being ignored in this calculation are the crucial elements of biodiversity, habitat, carbon, clean water, natural resources, and recreation, among others.  

In the frequent discussion around limited financial resources in rural communities, and the resulting increasing and often desperate talks of regionalization as remedy to underfunding for schools, roads, and emergency services, it’s important that this systemic issue be included as both cause of fiscal stress and potential avenue for solution. 

The Woodlands Partnership, Auditor DiZoglio, state Sen. Paul Mark, and local officials are convening a public forum on this issue on Monday, April 7, at 1 pm, at Windsor Town Hall. 

There have been repeated legislative efforts to rectify the inequity in this program, which would not only provide critical support for small towns lacking capacity and services but would also support the state’s climate and conservation goals, as towns in areas with low reimbursement rates are often indifferent—or even hostile—to additional proposed conservation.  

When it comes to legislative efforts, programs that cost relatively little and have great effect on services, such as this one, should be prioritized—especially when such efforts connect to and further broader state and climate goals.  

When a small town has only a few hundred people in it, however, and is struggling to provide basic services to its residents, it’s often hard to have that message heard all the way out in Boston.  

Dicken Crane of Windsor is chair of the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts. Art Schwenger of Heath is vice chair. Sam Haupt of Peru is chair of the Partnership’s Municipal Financial Sustainability Committee.   

The post Our towns in Western Mass. are getting shortchanged under the reimbursement formula for state-owned land  appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THE FOOD BANK of Western Massachusetts recently received troubling news: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has canceled a portion of its food deliveries through August—an estimated $440,000 worth of food we were counting on.

While this represents only 1 percent of our total distribution last year, it’s a serious shortfall that will force us to draw on emergency reserves to purchase food. 

Even more concerning are the proposed federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These cuts would deepen food insecurity across Western Massachusetts and further strain our already overburdened food assistance network.

Based in Chicopee, the Food Bank supplies nutritious food to 194 local pantries and meal sites across all four counties of Western Massachusetts. When families can’t afford enough groceries, they turn to this network—already pushed to its limits. 

SNAP is more than a safety net—it’s the front line against hunger. Each month, SNAP supports 194,000 people in our region and injects $35 million into the local economy. With an average benefit of just $6.20 per person per day, any cut would leave even more families unable to afford food—especially as grocery prices continue to rise. 

Funding cuts to SNAP and further cuts to USDA food directly to food banks would be catastrophic. The high cost of living, unpredictable policy changes, and diminished federal support pose a significant threat to the well-being of people in every town and city in Western Massachusetts.  

The Food Bank remains committed to providing nutritious food to people when and where they need it across our region.  

The Food Bank will: 

• Continue to provide nutritious food without interruption 
• Raise additional funds to purchase food 
• Work with our federal and state legislators to defend critical federal nutrition programs 

Without adequate government and private sector support and investment, not only will individuals go hungry, but the entire food economy — from food banks to grocers to farms — will be severely impacted. It is both shortsighted and unjust to slash food assistance while so many working families, seniors, children, and others on fixed incomes are struggling to meet their basic needs. 

This is a moment for us to come together—as we always do in Western Massachusetts. We urge our congressional delegation to continue standing up against these cuts and protecting the programs that keep nutritious food on people’s tables and money flowing into local businesses. 

Andrew Morehouse is executive director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. Charlotte Boney is president of the board.

The post Federal nutrition budget cuts will cause real pain in Western Mass. appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THE IMPOSITION OF tariffs on energy imports from Canada jeopardizes both our climate targets and the economic security of millions of residents and businesses across New England and New York.  

President Trump has imposed broad 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports. It remains unclear whether these tariffs apply to electricity (the Trump administration issued no clarification), an intangible good that has never before been subject to import duties.  

The Northeast has long been a leader in clean energy innovation, setting ambitious goals to transition to a more sustainable, affordable, and reliable power grid. Tariffs of this magnitude on clean Canadian electricity imports are a direct attack on affordability, burdening US consumers with an estimated $400 million in additional costs annually. 

These tariffs will be felt particularly during peak-demand periods, when the Northeast’s reliance on Canadian electricity is most acute. During these hours, tariffs could increase wholesale electricity prices by up to 30 percent. These costs disproportionately affect working families and small businesses that are already struggling with high energy costs. 

At a time when states like Massachusetts and New York are working to expand clean energy infrastructure and reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the artificial price increases from tariffs will drive clean and affordable hydroelectricity from Canada out of energy markets. The result is the opposite effect of what our state policies seek and instead will drive up costs and push the region further into dependence on natural gas and oil. 

Massachusetts alone is expected to see a $200 million increase in electricity if 25 percent tariffs are imposed on Canadian electricity imports.  

Beyond the financial impact, tariffs will undermine the reliability of the Northeast’s power grid. Just this year, during the coldest periods of January and February, Canadian energy exports accounted for 10 percent of New York’s demand and 15 percent in New England, rising to 20 percent during peak-demand hours.  

With the added tariff costs on imports, our region will inevitably rely more heavily on fossil fuel plants that are vulnerable to fuel supply shortages and price spikes during extreme weather events. The energy market works by selecting the least expensive form of energy available to provide the required amount of energy demanded by the market. If tariffs make otherwise affordable Canadian hydroelectricity more expensive than oil and gas, the market will choose those less costly sources. 

Some parts of our region are especially vulnerable. Certain rural areas in Vermont and Northern Maine, which are directly linked to electric grids in Canada and have no viable alternative supply, could be hardest hit. Tariffs could lead to millions of dollars in increased costs annually, exacerbating energy insecurity for residents who already face higher-than-average electricity prices. 

Imposing tariffs on Canadian hydroelectricity is not just bad economics—it’s bad climate policy. With the withdrawal of this affordable, clean energy source, the region will be forced to burn more natural gas and oil, leading to an estimated 10 million additional tons of carbon emissions annually — annual emissions equivalent to those emitted by every car registered in New York City.  

This is a step backward at a time when we should be accelerating our clean energy transition. The Northeast has set aggressive goals to cut emissions and transition to 100 percent clean power, yet these tariffs will make clean energy less competitive, slowing progress toward a carbon-free grid. 

Supporters of these tariffs argue that they will level the playing field for domestic energy producers but, in reality, they will undermine the market forces that are driving innovation and competition in the clean energy sector.  

They completely ignore the interconnected nature of the US-Canadian electricity system, which has historically provided economic, reliability, and environmental benefits to both countries. Just last week, New York State released a report assessing tariff impacts. State agencies conclude that “losing access to Canadian imports during the peak summer cooling months could create significant reliability challenges.” 

New York and New England cannot afford to let anything but the public interest and cost dictate energy policy. These tariffs will raise prices, reduce reliability, and set back the clean energy transition at a time when we need to accelerate progress, not stall it. 

Governors, legislators, and regulators in the Northeast must visibly stand together against these tariffs, advocating for continued access to affordable, clean electricity. Businesses, labor groups, and community organizations must also speak out, making it clear that these policies will harm local economies, cost jobs, and increase energy burdens for working families. 

Joe Curtatone is president if the Alliance for Climate Transition. 

The post Tariffs on Canada threaten our energy future and economic growth appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

AS MASSACHUSETTS CONTENDS with an enormous crisis of housing affordability and availability, building more homes to bring supply into alignment with demand is essential. Even when market conditions are good, this has been a challenge for the state, with housing starts lagging far behind what’s needed to support a growing population.  

But things are poised to get even more difficult. The number of housing units permitted has already fallen by nearly 30 percent over the past three years, and the housing construction pipeline could become even more constrained by Trump administration policies if tariffs on materials and reductions in the immigrant workforce drive construction costs even higher.  

Against that backdrop, it will become even more important to find ways to make more efficient use of the state’s existing housing stock. That’s where there’s a role for the Special Commission on Senior Housing, which was created by the Affordable Homes Act signed last year by Gov. Maura Healey.  

The commission held its first meeting in late March. As it works to recommend policies, programs, and investments to expand the supply of housing for seniors, devising strategies to help older adults move into smaller homes should also be high on the commission’s agenda.  

Effective downsizing strategies would give more seniors the chance to live in homes that are easier and less expensive to maintain, while freeing up larger homes for Millennials and Gen Z-ers stuck in one- and two-bedroom apartments. To be sure, not every senior will want to downsize. It is just as important therefore to put equal thought into approaches that help seniors who want to stay in larger homes plan for how to maintain them, both for their safety and well-being and so these homes can eventually be passed down to the next generation in relatively good repair. 

A comprehensive plan that gives seniors in larger homes a variety of options makes sense. But it can also be a fraught topic. Two decades ago, then-Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey drew blowback with the mere suggestion that helping “overhoused” seniors move to smaller quarters fit with Gov. Mitt Romney’s prudent approach to smart growth. 

At the time, it was dubbed “smart policy and bad politics,” but with the right approach it doesn’t have to present that challenging tradeoff.  

In hindsight, Kerry Healey was right to start this conversation more than 20 years ago. Census data reveal the extent to which this problem has magnified over the years by giving us a look at who has traditionally lived in the state’s family-sized homes across the generations.  

In 1980, only about one-third of older households (those headed by an adult who was 65 or older) occupied a home with three or more bedrooms; today, more than half of households headed by an adult age 65 or older still live in these family-sized homes.  

We might chalk this trend up to homes generally getting larger in recent decades. But the data show a striking pattern—younger households in Massachusetts are far less likely to occupy a family-sized home today than they were four decades ago.  

Over 70 percent of the 36-to-45-year-old cohort had a home with three or more bedrooms in 1980. Now the figure is down to around 60 percent for this age group. For 26-to-35-year-olds, there has been an 8 percentage point decline in family-sized home occupancy since 1980. Those in their prime childrearing age today live in three-bedroom homes at about the same rate as the 65+ cohort did four decades ago.  

To a degree, these patterns reflect recent generations delaying marriage, putting off having kids, and ultimately giving birth to fewer children. But those trends are endogenous to the housing market problem: The inability to afford housing is shaping household formation decisions and it is certainly changing the mix of family households in Massachusetts through migration.  

With school enrollments falling and workforce challenges looming, it is important to recognize that the largest share (26 percent) of family-sized homes in Massachusetts are now occupied by those in the 65 and over age bracket. If the same share of older Massachusetts residents were living in family-sized homes today as in 1980, Massachusetts would have an additional 142,000 properties with three or more bedrooms for young families to occupy on the market.  

Of course, this would mean more seniors living in existing smaller homes. But to put that number of family-sized homes in perspective, consider that the Healey administration has said 222,000 new housing units are needed over the next decade to stabilize the market and rein in costs.  

To be sure, many seniors are just fine with their larger homes, and no one should pressure these residents to make a change. But two decades after this issue was raised and briefly became the subject of public debate and scrutiny, anecdotal reports suggest many older adults want to downsize.  

The new commission can provide much needed leadership by helping us better understand the various obstacles faced by seniors who may wish to make a move. Maybe it’s moving costs, tax and estate planning concerns, or the idea of packing and setting up camp somewhere new is just too overwhelming. It could also be that they don’t want to leave friends and loved ones behind, and there is a lack of smaller housing units in their communities.  

A quick public opinion poll could give housing leaders a better handle on these issues and help guide policy recommendations. With limited resources and many challenges, data insight to make smarter decisions has become even more paramount as we work to tackle the state’s housing crisis on multiple fronts.   

Ben Forman is director and Elise Rapoza is senior research associate at the MassINC Policy Center.

The post Kerry Healey was right: We should discuss senior ‘overhousing’ appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

“WE WILL NOT tolerate a kangaroo court…” 

That was state Auditor Diana DiZoglio declining, by way of a tweet, to take part in a Senate-sponsored hearing scheduled for Wednesday on the constitutionality of the law passed by the voters in November allowing her office to audit the Legislature.  

The “kangaroo court” she’s referring to is a four-member Senate subcommittee created to guide the Senate in developing its position on the constitutional issues the new law has raised (a picture of four kangaroos wearing English barrister wigs appears below the tweet). The “we” who will not tolerate the kangaroo court are the auditor and her supporters.  

You might ask why the law’s constitutionality is being raised now rather than before the election. Are laws that might be unconstitutional allowed to appear on the ballot anyway?  

Yes, they are.  

A proposed law may be excluded from the ballot only for one (or more) of a narrow set of reasons, and the possible unconstitutionality of the law is not among them, as the decision of Attorney General Andrea Campbell (who has the responsibility to determine which proposed laws may advance to the ballot) approving this question demonstrated.  

If last year’s ballot campaign had failed, of course, there would have been no need for the subcommittee’s work. But it succeeded, in part because lawmakers brought a long-simmering resentment about the Legislature’s secrecy and perceived arrogance to a boil.  

A series of unforced errors, like failing to finish its work on many of the most important bills of the session by its own self-imposed deadline, prompted voters to ratify the ballot question overwhelmingly, by a 72-28 margin. 

The Senate subcommittee will convene on April 2, seeking testimony from invited guests and members of the public on several questions, including whether the new law violates the separation of powers clause of the Massachusetts Constitution, which prohibits the three branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — from infringing on one another.  

The purpose of the separation of powers doctrine is to “diffuse power the better to secure liberty,” and our state Constitution goes to syntactic extremes to leave no doubt about that objective:   

“In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.” 

The resolution of separation of powers issues can be difficult, presenting the courts with challenges not unlike those the early Church fathers encountered when trying to illuminate the mystery of the Trinity: one God in three persons? One government in three branches?  

A proper analysis requires a “scrupulous” inquiry, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled. In three recent cases, the court found no separation of powers violation in two (Gov. Baker’s Covid-era orders shutting down the economy for a time did not improperly encroach on the Legislature’s powers; the Legislature did not improperly abdicate its authority when it delegated the power to formulate the details of the MBTA Communities law to the executive branch), but a statute allowing the Department of Correction to decide where a mentally-ill prisoner should be incarcerated did improperly usurp the power of the judicial branch to make that determination.

The separation of powers clause is also the reason why the attorney general may not rely on the possible unconstitutionality of a proposed law to exclude it from the ballot: The authority to determine the constitutionality of a law is reserved for the judicial branch to exercise. 

Whether the auditor, who in this case is the representative of the executive branch, can demand to examine the records of the Legislature over its objection certainly presents a separation of powers issue, which the auditor’s own statements have complicated further.  

At one time, she claimed the authority to obtain not only the usual raw material of an audit (receipts, balance sheets, procurement records) but also information on internal House and Senate rules, which are expressly protected by other constitutional provisions and do not even invoke the separation of powers clause. A more recent statement announced that her audit would “start” with “all relevant financial receipts and information,” a formulation that left open the possibility that more problematic demands would follow.  

She has seemed to wave away any constitutional concerns by citing the approval of 72 percent of voters, but an electoral supermajority has no bearing on their proper resolution. She has claimed that lawmakers have “intentionally misled voters regarding the constitutionality of an audit,” and she has accused the Senate subcommittee itself of violating the separation of powers doctrine by exercising the power of the judiciary (hence the “kangaroo court”), but without further elaboration.  

The attorney general, in responding to the auditor’s request that she respond to the Legislature’s intransigence by filing a lawsuit, commiserated that “the consideration of separation of powers principles may be vexing, frustrating, or insufficiently responsive to the politics of the moment,” a sentiment that the auditor and her supporters would enthusiastically agree with.  

But especially in these precarious times, when the federal government is offering up daily illustrations of the dangers of consolidating power in one branch, it’s unwise to discount the wisdom of diffusing governmental power.

The Senate subcommittee hearing offers the auditor the opportunity to make the case that her demand of the Legislature is consistent with constitutional principles, but it seems that she has declined to take it.   

Margaret Monsell, a former assistant attorney general and former general counsel to the state Senate Committee on Ways and Means, is an attorney practicing in the Boston area. 

The post DiZoglio misses chance to make her case by opting to tweet, not testify, on her quest to audit the Legislature appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.