Simply Having a Wonderful MassINC Time

Our 2022 year-end wrap-up

Simply Having a Wonderful MassINC Time  (loosely adapted from Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”) [Verse 1] The mood is right The spreadsheet’s up The data’s clean And that’s enough [Chorus] Simply having a wonderful MassINC time Simply having a wonderful MassINC time [Verse 2] The meeting’s on Each city here From Chicopee East to Revere [Chorus]

Gateway Cities look to the corner office for leadership on school integration

The Gateway Cities Journal

On the campaign trail, Governor-elect Healey did not articulate clear strategies for closing stark educational disparities in Massachusetts. Her appointments and statements in the coming weeks will be closely watched for clues on how she will approach these challenging issues. A strong first step would be to depart from her predecessors by acknowledging that increasing

A Gateway Cities Strategy for the Healey–Driscoll Administration

Transition Briefing Memorandum

Governor Healey takes office at a pivotal moment. State government must deploy a deluge of federal resources from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The mandate to leverage this unprecedented investment to combat the commonwealth’s two most existential threats—climate change and rising inequality—has never

Event Recap | First Annual Friends of Longitudinal Data Systems Fall Symposium

On Thursday, October 27th, MassINC and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston co-hosted the First Annual Friends of Longitudinal Data Systems Fall Symposium. The Friends of Longitudinal Data Systems (FoLDS) is a new group dedicated to advancing cutting-edge social policy research in Massachusetts. A collection of education advocates, researchers, philanthropic funders, and policymakers, FoLDS elevates

Building Stronger Community College Transfer Pathways

Evidence from Massachusetts

Produced by the research–practice partnership, Educational Opportunity in Massachusetts, this study explores transfer patterns for 10 cohorts of students entering community colleges soon after high school. The findings provide evidence of how policies adopted to make the transfer process more transparent and predictable have impacted different subgroups of students, both in terms of the probability

Mass Broadband poised to help Gateway Cities win the future

The Gateway Cities Journal

The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) issued a much-anticipated RFP for the Digital Equity Partnership Program last week. Drawing on resources from the state’s new Digital Equity Fund, the program will support a number of key strategies to close the digital divide, including: Digital literacy training programs to help residents build skills to use digital technologies;

Connecting Communities through Digital Equity

An Action Plan for State, Community, and Private and Institutional Partners

The COVID-19 pandemic brought much-needed attention to the digital divide and its profound implications for social and economic opportunity in our commonwealth. Across a range of sectors, public and private, leaders committed to addressing this challenge once and for all. Massachusetts has made progress over the past two years, but considerable work remains. Fortunately, leaders

Sizing Up Massachusetts’ Looming Skilled-Worker Shortage

In an extensive 2014 report with the UMass Donahue Institute, MassINC predicted the 2020’s would be the first decade in Massachusetts history to post a reduction in the state’s working-age, college-educated population. Drawing on the limited data available, this research brief explores how the COVID-19 pandemic disruption could impact our previous estimate. The analysis surfaces

Our sponsors