In November, Massachusetts residents will vote on as many as 11 initiative petitions that would make major changes to state law. Three of those questions relate directly to the Commonwealth’s economic and fiscal future:• Implementation of mandatory...

Over the last three years, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has written extensively on the relationship between pandemic-induced changes in working patterns, diminished vibrancy in our downtowns, and the lack of accessible and affordable...

On March 30th, the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions heard testimony on H.5006 An Act Relative to Limiting State Tax Collection Growth and Returning Surpluses to Taxpayers. MTF was asked to provide expert testimony on the proposal,...

On March 30th, the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions heard testimony on H.5007 An Act to Reduce the State Personal Income Tax Rate from 5% to 4%. MTF was asked to provide expert testimony on the proposal, which would reduce state tax...

On January 28th, the Healey-Driscoll administration released its $63.36 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget proposal. The spending plan reflects an increase of $2.3 billion (3.8 percent) over the FY 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) and $668...

This Fact Sheet builds on MTF’s earlier UI Fact Sheets, which outlined the basic structure of the system and detailed the impacts of the pandemic on the UI Trust Fund.The state’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) system faces a fundamental challenge that...

On July 4th, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law. The massive tax and spending bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the nation’s debt by $3.9 trillion over the next ten years, and...

The state’s UI system is still feeling the impact of significant unemployment during the pandemic, which resulted in thousands of additional individuals receiving UI benefits for an extended period. By April 2020, the state’s unemployment had...

The pandemic hugely disrupted the state’s economy and workforce, as unemployment rates jumped from 3.1 percent in February 2020, one of the lowest in state history, to 17.8 percent in April 2020, the highest in over four decades. During the pandemic,...

The federal government spends more than $6 trillion each year through its annual budget. The federal budget process shares some similarities with the state, but it also differs in many ways.This resource provides a basic outline of that process and...