Three of the most-read stories from CommonWealth ... related to transportation, and the top story, about a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation study, focused on transportation and the fallout from COVID and remote work on the downtown Boston office market.

The top story, coming in at 53,000 pageviews, focused on the Massachusetts Taxpayers report arguing that urban economies are “on the precipice” due to high office vacancy rates and low public transit ridership. The rise in remote work and the poor state of the MBTA were partly to blame.

Already, for seven of the past nine years, Massachusetts has trailed the U.S. in private sector job growth, according to a 2022 report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Reasons include not only the cost of housing, which the Healey Administration is striving to address, but also the high cost of unemployment insurance and electricity

While the effect is particularly dramatic in Connecticut, the Nutmeg State is not the only part of New England seeing a larger net influx of Massachusetts residents. In 2021 and 2022, 65% of the outmigration from Massachusetts was to New England states, according to a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation analysis.

“That just wasn’t what we were seeing before,” Howgate said.

While there is no going back to the pre-pandemic patterns of living and working from 2019, Urban Economies on the Precipice: A Tale of Six Cities examines six major cities with similar profiles, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., detailing the disruptions and making recommendations to inform Massachusetts about which policies may work and on what schedule.

Please join MTF for our September Member Briefing, which will include a review of two recent Policy Fact Sheets on the structure and financing of the unemployment insurance system, a summary of the policy actions taken to address the demand for benefits during the pandemic, and the ramifications of these actions that are still impacting the system. The briefing will conclude with a preview of the current financial pressures on the system and the opportunity for reform.

A related and revealing statistic: Economic output in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states fell below that of six big southern states (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas) in 2021, and the gap is only getting wider. Not coincidentally, the population in those southern states is expanding.

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has highlighted all this in a new presentation called “Urban Economies on the Precipice: A Tale of Six Cities.”

A new report paints a sobering picture of what the shift to remote and hybrid work could do to the city’s economy in the months and years ahead, given the reduction in foot traffic and spending seen in the downtown since the pandemic.

“Urban Economies on the Precipice: A Tale of Six Cities,” a report issued Friday by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, examines the post-pandemic challenge Boston and five other major cities face in replacing worker-driven economies and managing the impacts of vacant office buildings.

As cities like Boston continue to navigate changes in urban economies resulting from the ongoing pandemic recovery, a new report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF) details the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Urban Economies on the Precipice: A Tale of Six Cities examines six major cities with similar profiles that drive regional economies – Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. – to detail the changes and make recommendations to inform Massachusetts about which polices may work and on what schedule.

Over the last two years, the federal government has made unprecedented investments in transportation, climate resiliency, and economic development infrastructure through three pieces of legislation: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors Act (CHIPS). Combined, these three bills include over $2 trillion in spending, nearly half of which will be made available to states through competitive grant programs and formula allocations over the next five to ten years.

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation report said U.S. Census Bureau data shows Suffolk and Middlesex County residents left at the highest rates. And 2021 tax returns for 2020 showed residents aged 26 to 35 were the largest group leaving, according to the foundation.

Analysts can have discussions over what the drivers of outmigration are, said Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate, but data shows the state has lost population.