It’s killing the state GOP to hear this, but facts are facts. The job market in Massachusetts continues to improve. Is it a full-blown out-of-the-woods recovery? No, not yet. But the trend is absolutely in the right direction.
“It feels we’re in the beginning of jobs recovery,” said [Jewish Vocational Service chief executive Jerry] Rubin, “and the clearest signal is when employers call us. We’re no longer chasing them. They’re coming to us.” …
Rubin’s leading indicator is the telephone. For most of last year, the phones rarely rang with calls from employers. Now, the phones are buzzing again with calls from hospitals, universities, nonprofits, hotels, and restaurants.
Among the companies calling is Legal Sea Foods. Chief executive Roger Berkowitz said the Boston restaurant chain added about 150 jobs in Massachusetts as business picked up over the past few months.
“It’s not back to where it was a year ago, but it’s climbing back,” Berkowitz said. “We’re cautiously optimistic about 2010.”
Hiring is also picking up at Children’s Hospital in Boston, where recruiters spent Christmas Eve interviewing candidates for a broad range of jobs, said Michelle Gordon-Seemore, the director of staffing and recruitment. “The number of openings has increased since the summer,” she said. “The floodgates haven’t opened, but I do believe it’s opening up.” …
At Winter, Wyman Cos., a Waltham staffing firm, placements of contract workers have risen 19 percent since September, said general manager Stuart Coleman.
“We’ve turned the corner,” he said. “Companies are spending, making key hires. It’s for real, but it’s going to be gradual.”
This report matches some others from back in 2009 showing that Massachusetts is outpacing the rest of the country in recovering from the biggest recession since 1929, even though in past recessions we had tended to lag. So someone must be doing something right. Now, who could that be?
UPDATE: I should have included this with the original post — thanks to alert commenter HessTruck for reminding me. This is from a press release that arrived yesterday, and is a further indication that the MA economy is on the upswing.
With revenue collections to date outpacing earlier estimates, Governor Deval Patrick today announced that he will restore two key programs serving Massachusetts students and low-income families.
The Governor will restore funding to two programs that had been cut as part of his solution to closing an estimated a $600 million revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year. Governor Patrick will restore $14 million to the Department of Transitional Assistance’s Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) program and $18 million to regional school transportation….
Since the revenue estimate was revised in October, the state has collected $230 million above the year-to-date benchmark. Based on those collections, Administration and Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez will revise the Fiscal Year 2010 tax revenue estimate to $18.460 billion, a $181 million increase over the October 15th estimate. The new estimate will fund the restorations announced today, previous restorations and other spending already accounted for.
When all our sales would be heading over to NH with the modest sales tax increase that Patrick went hand in hand with the reforms that he passed? We argued that it probably wouldn’t impact consumers here in MA and we could add revenue to help with the shortfall. Since we actually need police and fire fighters in the state.
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p>Well the camera is gone and MA revenues have gone up each of the past three months.
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p>Bumper Sticker: MA GOP, Wrong Again!
This kind of news can really have an impact on the Governor’s race. Steady increases in jobs and revenue will allow the Governor to argue we’re truly recovering. Investing in key sectors with career training programs is the way to go. There are plenty of worthy causes that need funding, but without good full-time jobs with long-term potential we’ll never generate a true recovery.
The reality is that there are fewer safety net services today to help struggling families care for children or manage mentally ill children’s care then there were 10 years ago – DCF no longer has the ability to do one service voluntary cases, caseloads are up, the availability of parent aids to train new families is way down, the availability of daycare to help a parent re-enter the job market is down…there are no more Guardian Ad Litems for education [eliminated in 2008 ostensibly for budget reasons by Chief Justice for Administration and Management Mulligan]…
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p>If revenue and jobs are recoverying, the rallying cry on behalf of vulnerable children and struggling families including then homeless whether or not due to foreclosure, and the job-hunting unemployed MUST be:
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p>NO MORE CUTS TO HUMAN SERVICES
Excerpt from yesterday’s State House News Service:
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p>”PATRICK RESTORES SPENDING, RAISES REVENUE ESTIMATE BY $181 MILLION: While tax collections are still declining in some key categories, receipts have exceeded the state’s downgraded estimates by $230 million since October and Gov. Deval Patrick said Wednesday his administration is now boosting the state’s revenue estimate for the current year by $181 million to “fund the restorations announced today, previous restorations and other spending already accounted for.” …revenue totals now sit $230 million above the benchmarks that were lowered in October. Hours after the revenue reports, Patrick announced he would restore $14 million to a public welfare program and $18 million for regional school transportation services…”
The right-wing media has been drooling over Baker’s fundraising prowess and highlighting Patrick’s missteps.
We all know the best social program is a job. Any dollars invested in upgrading people’s skills so they can go back to work or get a better job results in higher tax revenues and happier residents for our state.
The Governor and Legislature should look more closely at the tax expenditure budget (which does not garner the same annual scrutiny as state budget appropriations). Every dollar given away in a tax credit is a dollar lost to revenues. According to a recent report by the MA Budget Policy Center we are paying 25% of every movie budget that is made here in MA. Including 25% of Tom Cruise’s paycheck for the film! How absurd is that when we have shredded services to children, the elderly and disabled people?
The report also makes clear that we are not gaining a similar amount of jobs or tax revenues from the films. So with this crisis Governor (and staff) comes this opportunity.
Take it!
just go look for yourself
I work as a pension actuary with a local consulting firm. I get to work with the raw asset and census data for my clients, as well as get a sense of what’s happening with our pool of 900 plan sponsors.
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p>The past year has seen a huge increase in loans, hardship withdrawals, but seems to be ebbing, and assets are slowly rebounding in these plans (although if you really want to see where assets are, don’t kid yourself looking at where things were at the end of last year to now, the benchmark you should be looking at is where asset values were in October of 2007). Just starting to see census data rolling in for our December clients. Will be interesting to see the balance of new hires v. terminated employees during the year. Certainly not scientific, but unvarnished data does give one insight as to what is happening, at least in my little world. My sense is that the worst has passed, and that at least some of these clients are making money again.
Kravitz’s Boston Globe op-ed suggestions to Gov. Deval Patrick is the political equivalent of Lord Raglan’s strategy at the Battle of Balaclava.
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Interesting that Kravitz concludes “facts are facts” when the economy begins to show a slight uptick, but dismisses those facts that don’t comport with his personal morals or ideology.
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p>Like his rambling Globe op-ed where he wrote that Massachusetts residents don’t support casinos when the “facts” — poll after poll after poll by the Globe, Herald, Ch. 7, Ch. 25, UNH and UMass — documents that a majority of Bay State residents, nearly 60%, support casino gambling.
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p>Apparently, “facts are facts” when Kravitz finds political expediency in those facts, but that “facts are not facts” when they undercut his personal, moral views on certain public policy initiatives.
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p>Once again, a great example of why the far-left, politically correct pitch of my party is heading us toward a new governor in November. And then BMG will spend the next four, eight, 12, 16 years of Repub gubernatorial rule lamenting the loss of good, strong progressive pulic policies.
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p>Ironic that the BMG “we don;t compromise” crowd, will have assuredly opened the door for these Republican wingnuts once again.
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p>When will you politically correct yahoos learn that tilting so far to the left and away from the middle only makes our far-left Dem wing resemble the wingnuts on the Republican right.
Care to elaborate?
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p>How has the Patrick administration “tilted so far to the left”? What are some examples?
He or she is obsessed with casinos. That’s all he/she ever writes about, and he/she gets all upset when anyone says anything even mildly critical of them.
I think David’s reading is correct: The only kind of political correctness that appears to irk proudlib is opposition to casinos.
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p>And I think David’s reasoning is correct, too: Even if over 60% of Massachusetts residents cannot see casinos open soon enough, the other 40% of Massachusetts residents include lots and lots of Deval Patrick’s (formerly) core supporters.
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p>Lack of enthusiasm among core supporters never bodes well.
Edgar’s a self-professed Lieberman Democrat. I’d wager he’s looking at the world through a Kaleidoscope.
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p>I’m also fairly certain he’s cheering the “liberals suck” parts of the post.
I’d place my chips on a different number. Edgar often inveighs against what he perceives as group think among liberals. I bet he’s misinterpreting proudlib as expressing that sentiment forcefully. Oh, and yes, Edgar is a “conservadem”.
Speaking of Lieberman, polling has been none to kind to him. Recent polling (pdf) shows him at 25% approval. If you look at the crosstabs, you’ll see no one likes him: no ethnic group, no ideological group, no party, no gender.
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p>So aligning with Lieberman might soon qualify one for being preserved as a national historic monument.
As Edgar himself would say “That is your lefty opinion, nothing more-nothing less.”
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p>;)
… enraged the left by being a roadblock and then enraged the right by being the 60th vote. I don’t know how much ‘credit’ he thinks he’s going to get with the right by forcing compromise. In the fight against health care reform, they don’t know the meaning of the term.
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at Dunkin Donuts. Why so much dislike for Joe Lieberman? He was our VP candidate in 2000 for goodness sake. Actually, ignore that question; I am not that stupid, have followed the various skirmishes with the left of the party for the past few years. But you honestly think that Lamont is an improvement? This will not shock you guys, but Joe is one of the very few candidates to whom I have contributed campaign money (his victory over Lamont).
and polling also shows that Connecticut voters have come around to that view too.
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p>Lieberman’s opposition to various forms of the healthcare bill were an odd mixture. Sometimes, they were based misperceptions (to be overly charitable) and sometimes they directly contradicted campaign promises or prior statements made by Joe Lieberman himself. The guy may project gravitas, but, like R. B. Cheney, there’s a lot that’s missing there. It’s an act.
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p>Maybe that’s what you didn’t like about Lamont. His voice is higher. He’s more nervous. His gestures are faster. He doesn’t do gravitas well.
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p>But on Iraq Lamont was right — and not only was Lieberman wrong, he was incoherent. On healthcare, Lamont would be better. I bet he’d be better too on regulation of the financial sector.
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p>It’s not a hard choice.
Always had the impression that someone in the background was pulling Lamont’s strings. Joe seems much, much brighter. He wasn’t the only one wrong about Iraq; many of us were. As for regulation of the financial sector, none of the politicians, either party, has been up to task.
In the early days of the American Republic, people voted for Men of Good Character. Virtuous men, it was assumed, would make the best leaders.
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p>That has become less and less true.
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p>Now, in the modern day of advertising, someone as clueless as Bush II can look quite Presidential indeed. So I’d urge caution in your personality assessments.
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p>Also, some annoying people with squeaky voices who whine all the time can actually accomplish great things while grave, serious, important-looking people (think CEOs, e.g., Ken Lay) can do enormous harm. In a Shakespeare play, Richard III’s ugliness reflects the ugliness of his character; in real life, this isn’t always so true.
the sleeping dragon:
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p>http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd1c…
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p>This guy is on the money. Not Deval’s fault at all, but sobering news for governments. The ultimate problem that the pension reform bill really didn’t address.
http://www3.whdh.com/news/arti…
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p>Not to mention “contract workers” are temporary employees, usually hired as cheaply as possible, and discharged when they’re no longer needed.