boston.com
State seen winner, loser in migrations
High-skilled in; middle-class out
By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 12/4/2003
A new study suggests that Massachusetts has lured hordes of well-paid, college-educated workers from high-tech havens such as New York, North Carolina, and California since 1990, but has lost a far greater number of middle-class families who fled to more affordable New England states.
The study, released today by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, also indicates that more people left the Bay State than relocated here each year between 1990 and 2002, despite a significant economic expansion for much of that time.
While the study's authors offer no recommendations to stem the outflow of residents, they say the findings make clear that Bay State policy makers must actively address the spiralling costs of housing and living in Massachusetts if they hope to solve the problem.
"The big point here is that the folks we are gaining, while certainly high-octane, are not compensating for those we are losing," said Michael D. Goodman, director of economic and public policy research for the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts and coauthor of the study called "Mass.migration."
The profile of those coming to Massachusetts "is quite high and impressive, but the sheer number is not enough," he said.
The report suggests that the state's new migrants are highly mobile individuals, likely to move if better opportunities exist elsewhere or in an economic downturn. The flight of the middle-class, the report says, is troubling, because such families "are the bedrocks of community life."
"The ones who are leaving are Massachusetts born and educated and have deep ties here," the document says. "We let these vital contributors to our communities and our economy slip away at the Commonwealth's peril."
Correlating data from the 2000 Census and the Internal Revenue Service, the MassINC study suggests that Massachusetts experienced a net loss of more than 213,000 people to other states from 1990 to 2002.
The heaviest outflow occurred between 1990 and 1995, the data indicate, when the Commonwealth saw net annual losses as high as 60,000 to other states.
By 1999, the losses had dwindled to fewer than 4,000 a year, but the emigration figures shot up again beginning in 2000, and reached 19,819 in 2001, suggesting that Massachusetts may once again see a prolonged period in which residents leave en masse for other states.
But the study by the nonpartisan group indicates that in the race to attract high-tech workers, at least, Massachusetts is outpacing what the study labels as competing states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, and New York. The new arrivals had a median age of 29, were overwhelmingly born outside the Bay State, tended to be single, and most had a bachelor's degree at a minimum, the study indicates.They were also more diverse in race and ethnicity, with about 22 percent of them Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and others, as opposed to 15 percent of the population of Massachusetts. All told, Massachusetts lured 14,428 more people than it lost to the competitor states from 1990 to 2002, the study suggests.
"The good news is that Massachusetts is now really winning the brain exchange contest," said Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, who read a draft copy of the MassINC study. "That shows we're still one of the chosen places that people want to live and work. We still have the brain power and the statistics prove it. A 14,000 increase is pretty sizable."
But if Massachusetts is winning the migratory trade battle with its economic rivals, it is losing the fight to retain middle-class residents, who the study defines as those who, as a rule, don't work in the high-tech sector, don't hold professional or managerial positions, and are less likely to hold a bachelor's degree.
In addition, the middle-class flight has largely affected residents who are far more likely than those coming to the Bay State to be married and have children.
In recent years, Massachusetts has seen an exodus of such families to neighboring states, where the cost of housing and staples of daily life are far lower.
And contrary to popular belief, the authors say, they are not commuting back to Massachusetts. Eighty percent of those who leave find new jobs in their new home states.
The outflow of middle-class families, who are overwhelmingly native Bay Staters who are married and white, has accelerated in the past two years, the study revealed.
Since 2000, Massachusetts has lost more residents than it gained from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the rest of New England, the study suggests.
The migratory imbalance is most pronounced with New Hampshire, which since 1990 has gained 78,201 more Bay State residents than it has sent south of the border, the study indicates.
Only Florida, a favorite destination for retirees, had a larger net gain of Massachusetts residents over the past 13 years, the study suggested.
"I think, on a community level, we are squeezing the viability of the Massachusetts middle class," said Ian Bowles, executive director of MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank. "It means that people who grew up here cannot necessarily afford a house in their parents' neighborhood now. I think the broader point is, a decade ago, people said the biggest strategic issue here was the cost of doing business, but the issue now is clearly the cost of living."
Goodman, the study's coauthor, said he now sees the vital importance of "nurturing the native population" by making affordable education and job training much more accessible.
Doing so, he said, will ensure that middle-class families have better opportunities to increase their income and keep pace with the rising costs of housing and living.
That's especially important, Goodman said, because the recent transplants are far more likely than those brought up in Massachusetts to uproot and move yet again to another state.
"The idea that the people we are gaining will stay here," Goodman said, "is a questionable assumption at best." |
