A Look Ahead at 2022 Economic Development In Massachusetts

In the last two years we have heard the words “new normal” bandied about over and over again. The new normal for school, work, and every possible social interaction we make as human beings has changed. The new normal isn’t just impacting our social lives, mental health, or physical health, it’s also causing massive consequences for our economic outlook for the future. 

As we sit here at the start of another year in a pandemic, we thought it was a good time to stop, breathe for a moment, and take a look at what may be on the horizon for the economic development of our state and region in the coming year. 

The State of the State

Let’s face it, we all breathed a sigh of relief when the year 2020 turned to 2021, thinking that the pandemic would soon be over. 

With another calendar year turning, yet again, it’s hard not to feel like things have been dragging on, or stuck in a struggle between the pandemic and our economy for too long. 

The good news is that the great state of Massachusetts has been hard at work making adjustments that put us in a fairly good spot compared to many states in the nation.

In a late fall 2021 a report by the Senate Committee on Reimagining Massachusetts Post-Pandemic Resiliency was released that looked at a range of possible steps the state could take to address a slew of issues, from the future of work, digital infrastructure and racial equity to housing, education, public health and transportation and commuting needs.

Knowing that the state must do some pivoting to handle the changing economic landscape, Democratic Senate President Karen Spilka noted that the goal of the committee was to look at key vulnerabilities that COVID-19 has revealed in the economy. “We know that we are not going exactly back to the old normal.”

For the future we must readjust to what the virus has thrown at us. 

Regional Disparities 

Boston Indicators online has been tracking data sources on regional economic trends through the COVID Community Data Lab.

They report that, “A common dynamic across most domains is that the pandemic has hit lower-income and communities of color much harder than others. To be clear, this has been a tough period for everyone in Greater Boston.”

Some Bay Staters happen to be in lines of work that translated smoothly to remote settings, while others either worked in sectors that shut down entirely or they worked in frontline, essential jobs like health care and food service, which required them to risk infection by going to work every day. These key differences can be mapped by city, town, and region and have made a huge impact on the disparities of unemployment levels in each area. 

Additionally, the report on Boston Indicators showed that financial insecurity and demand for social assistance is higher in Black, Latinx and lower-income communities. In general, they state that, “Food insecurity and economic anxiety are elevated across the state but are much higher for Black and Latinx households.”

Continue to follow our blog series and radio program North Shore Conversations to stay up-to-date on all that is happening in our state economically as we recover from the coronavirus pandemic.