THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college; free MBTA service; right-to-shelter;  rent control; supervised injection sites; school library books; reparations;  voter ID requirements; a moratorium on prison construction; and limiting investments in natural gas infrastructure.)  

The Proposal 

Enact a universal basic Income plan to ensure that every household in Massachusetts has a minimum monthly income to cover essential living expenses. 

Background 

Universal basic income (UBI) is an anti-poverty and income stability proposal intended to ensure that all households have a guaranteed income with few, if any, strings attached.   

Five cities in Massachusetts have launched limited pilot programs with monthly stipends up to $500, to evaluate the impact on recipients, especially with regard to food security, health, and employment.  State Sen. Jason Lewis has introduced a bill to establish a five-year state-sponsored pilot for 1,500 people to ensure recipients have a monthly income from all sources that is “at least equal to a living wage,” which for a single-adult with two children would average about $11,250 (pre-tax) in Massachusetts, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. 

A form of UBI, called the negative income tax, was proposed by free-market economist Milton Friedman in the early 1960s as a way to put cash in the hands of poor people without the need for large bureaucracies to manage anti-poverty programs. President Richard Nixon, with advice and advocacy from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, borrowed Friedman’s idea as the basis for his Family Assistance Plan, which would have replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, but it was rejected by Congress in 1972.   

A related approach, called the earned income tax credit, was first enacted by Congress in 1975 to provide low-income workers with supplementary income through a refundable credit against their federal tax bill. Similarly, in 1997 Congress passed the child tax credit to help pay for childcare to enable parents to work or go to school.   

The EITC and CTC have been expanded over the years and some states, including Massachusetts, have enacted their own versions to supplement the federal benefits. The federal EITC is worth up to $7,800, with Massachusetts adding up to $3,100. The maximum federal CTC benefit is $2,000 per child ($1,400 of which is refundable for families that don’t pay federal income taxes), to which Massachusetts adds up to $440. 

Although the idea of a universal basic income has resurfaced periodically over the years, it has gained political traction over the past decade, especially during the COVID pandemic when the  federal government provided billions of dollars in additional cash assistance and tax credits to displaced workers and low-income families. 

Bumper Stickers and Sticking Points 

End Poverty, Now!: Poverty is not a bug, but a feature of American capitalism. The free market is inherently rigged against poor people, limiting their opportunities for employment or forcing them into low-wage, mostly part-time jobs with no benefits. The accelerating pace of technological change is making a bad situation worse, not just for poor people, but for the middle class, too. As a result, the only solution to poverty and financial instability is to ensure every family has a government guaranteed income.  

No More Handouts!:  Cash welfare payments inevitably discourage people from working and create patterns of dependency that are passed on from generation to generation. Increasing the size of welfare checks and extending them to people who are already self-sufficient only serves to undermine personal responsibility and deepen a sense of entitlement, sapping the country of the hard-working, entrepreneurial spirit that has made it the world’s most successful economy. 

Evidence-Based Case in Favor 

The animating idea behind a universal basic income is that by establishing a financial floor under every household, federal and state governments can simplify the current patchwork of cash and in-kind benefits for low-income households, thereby increasing participation of eligible families and reducing the negative impacts and perverse incentives of “cliff effects,” wherein recipients lose public benefits as their income rises.   

At the same time, a guaranteed income promises to create greater household financial stability and security, especially in light of long-term wage stagnation and the ongoing disruption of labor markets due to technology and globalization, thereby enabling families to better plan for their future while reducing food and housing insecurity and creating a better environment for raising children. 

To date, the largest and longest running guaranteed income programs have been implemented in economically developing countries with high levels of deep poverty, such as Prospera in Mexico and Bolsa Familia in Brazil, both of which have produced positive results in terms of health indicators, educational outcomes, employment, and inter-generational economic mobility. 

More recently, a growing number of pilot programs have been launched in US cities, typically providing families with monthly cash grants of $400-$1,000. From this pool of data points, some promising findings are emerging.  

Importantly, the majority of expenditures resulting from UBI payments go for basic needs, like food, housing, transportation, and health care, according to aggregated data from over 30 US pilots compiled by Stanford University’s Basic Income Lab. In no case does it appear as if cash grants have been used for frivolous purposes, let alone self-destructive ones, such as drugs or alcohol. 

Here in Massachusetts, the Shah Foundation sponsored a 2020-21 pilot in which 2,000 Chelsea residents received $400 per month via debit cards. A study of the program by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston found that about three-quarters of the funds were spent at supermarkets or grocery stores and other food retailers. 

A similar program in Cambridge provided low-income, single-parent households with $500 per month for 18 months. Recipients “reported higher incomes and lower income volatility” than a control group, according to a study conducted by the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania, contributing to a lower housing cost burden and greater food stability.  

Besides the positive direct financial effects associated with UBI, researchers consistently find indirect benefits related to mental health, family stability, and educational outcomes. For example, according to researchers at the Penn center, the children in the Cambridge UBI “treatment group” saw positive educational effects, such as higher grades and fewer absences. 

All these studies point to consistently positive effects of these UBI pilots, even though the monthly stipends have been relatively small, and the duration of the pilots has been short. 

A more recent large-scale example of the potential impact of cash grant programs is the expansion of the federal child tax credit during COVID. In 2021, low-income families received a fully refundable tax credit of up to $3,600 per child and child poverty dropped by over 40 percent, lifting over 2 million children out of poverty.  After the CTC expansion lapsed in 2022, child poverty rates doubled.  

Evidence-Based Case Opposed 

Universal basic income proposals can be terribly expensive and perhaps more important, most studies of UBI programs have shown little, if any, positive impact on employment and earnings.  Similarly, although there is strong evidence that these initiatives raise household income and improve living conditions, they do not appear to help families escape poverty. 

According to a 2019 analysis, a nationwide UBI program that pays $12,000 per adult per year,  phasing out at the median income level, would likely increase the annual fiscal impact of the federal social welfare programs they replace (excluding health care and Social Security retirement benefits) by over $900 billion or 250 percent.   

Here in Massachusetts, the Department of Transitional Assistance estimates that there are about 700,000 recipients in the Commonwealth of SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) and/or TAFDC (Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children) cash grants. Taken together these programs provide the average participating household with about $12,500 per year in benefits – not counting additional funds low-income households can access through federal and state CTC and EITC refundable tax credits, which average over $5,000 combined.  

If Massachusetts were to provide additional cash grants on top of existing federal and state benefit programs to get all households to the poverty line (pegged by the federal government at close to $80,000 statewide for a family of three) it would cost the Commonwealth billions of dollars. The pilot program proposed by Sen. Lewis would be even more expensive, since it ties UBI payments to a “living wage,” which averages close to $135,000 per year for a single-parent family of three in Massachusetts, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. 

But that’s not all. Most UBI proposals are designed to go beyond low-income families. As a result, they would include more numerous working- and middle-class households that would end up receiving the bulk of additional resources, even if cash grants were gradually phased out as earned income increases.   

UBI programs that narrowly target low-income families would be cheaper, but they would present the same “cliff effects” as the existing social welfare system, since any additional earned income would reduce public cash grants, thereby discouraging work.   

Notwithstanding the potential costs of UBI, there’s little evidence to suggest that they enable, let alone encourage, the surest pathway out of poverty, namely work.  

A recent randomized controlled trial of two privately funded three-year pilot programs in Dallas and Chicago found that a $1,000 per month stipend caused “a 3.9 percentage point decrease in labor market participation. Participants reduced their work hours as a result of the transfers by 1-2 hours/week and participants’ partners reduced their work hours by a comparable amount. Among other categories of time use, the greatest increase generated by the transfer was in time spent on leisure.” 

The potential for negative effects on employment – especially full-time employment – not only undermines the likelihood of escaping poverty in the near term, it also raises the risks of ongoing inter-generational dependency.   

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground 

Poverty rates in America have long been among the highest in the economically developed world, with little movement since the 1970s except in response to the ups and downs of the overall economy, despite several rounds of policy reforms. In many respects, UBI proposals are a natural reflection of these frustratingly stagnant trends.   

The difference of opinion over UBI generally comes down to what’s valued most by either side of the argument: reducing the effects of poverty now or increasing self-sufficiency in the future. 

There’s no solution that’s been shown to do both together and, unfortunately, neither are there cost-effective approaches that have even been able to achieve either one separately. While the current patchwork of social services and income supports is overly complex and expensive to operate, as a practical and political matter the best near-term option may be to pursue incremental improvements, rather than sweeping transformation.   

EITC, CTC and SNAP appear to have the biggest impact on reducing childhood poverty. EITC directly incentivizes work by supplementing earned income, while CTC and SNAP directly address the basic needs of children and families. CTC, which is the largest anti-poverty program targeting children, also fully phases out at relatively high income levels, thereby mitigating some of the “cliff effects” associated with increased earnings. 

Less than 80 percent of eligible EITC and SNAP households participate in those programs, while over 90 percent receive CTC benefits. Fully aligning or even consolidating all three programs (or at least EITC and CTC) would simplify and improve access, as would more efficient or automatic methods for enrollment. Other reforms related to eligibility, work or education and training requirements, and the phase-in and phase-out rules could also be considered. 

Regardless of the path forward, it seems impractical for Massachusetts to make significant changes to social welfare programs on its own, including the implementation of some version of UBI, without the full participation and leadership of the federal government. 

James Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker. 

Data: 

• Poverty rate in MA (2024): 10.4 percent (39^th in the US) 

• Median household income in MA (2025): $89,645 (2^nd in the US) 

• Percent of MA population enrolled in Medicaid (2025): 27.2 percent (23^rd in the US) 

• Projected Fiscal Impact of MA Earned Income Tax Credit (2025): $341M 

• Projected Fiscal Impact of MA Child and Family Tax Credit (2025): $460M 

• Average annual SNAP benefit per MA household (2023): $4,020 

• Average annual TAFDC benefit per MA household (2023): $8, 532 

• Overall public welfare spending in MA per capita (2022): $4,545 (1^st in US) 

Sources and Resources: 

US Census Bureau:  https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html 

US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service: https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap 

Internal Revenue Service:  https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-individuals-what-they-mean-and-how-they-can-help-refunds 

Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:  https://itep.org/ 

Peter G. Peterson Foundation: https://www.pgpf.org/issues/social-programs/ 

Stanford Basic Income Lab:  https://basicincome.stanford.edu/ 

Center for Guaranteed Income Research:  https://www.penncgir.org/ 

MIT Living Wage Calculator: https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/25/locations 

The post Should Massachusetts implement a program providing universal basic income?   appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college; free MBTA service; the state’s right-to-shelter law; allowing municipalities to enact rent control; whether the state should legalize supervised injection sites; giving school librarians more control over book selection while limiting the say of school committees and parents; whether to establish a reparations commission;  and whether to require voters to produce an ID before casting their ballot. ) 

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal: 

Limit repairs, upgrades or expansions of natural gas infrastructure, including restrictions on new residential or commercial gas hook-ups.

Background: 

In response to the risks posed by global climate change, the Commonwealth has enacted a series of legislative measures to limit or reduce the use of fossil fuels, with a goal of becoming a “net zero” emitter of greenhouse gases by 2050 (or no more than 85 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions in 1990).  Most recently, the legislature passed a sweeping climate bill that seeks to reduce reliance on natural gas, in part by subjecting applications for repairing, upgrading, or expanding pipelines and other infrastructure to strict scrutiny by a new “energy facilities siting board,” including consideration of the potential “cumulative impact” on the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals and the availability of clean energy alternatives.

Separately, a law was enacted in 2022, authorizing the state Department of Energy Resources to launch the “Fossil Fuel-Free Demonstration” pilot program, encouraging up to 10 cities and towns to adopt permitting or zoning ordinances that severely restrict or prohibit natural gas hook-ups for new or renovated buildings.  The first municipal pilots went into effect this past Spring.

Just over half of all Massachusetts households rely on natural gas for heating and cooking, accounting for almost one-third of natural gas consumption in the Commonwealth.  About half of our electric power is generated with natural gas, which accounts for just under 30 percent of the state’s total natural gas usage.  Commercial buildings represent slightly less than 30 percent of total natural gas consumption, with the remainder going mostly for industrial uses.

Massachusetts ranks 47^th nationally in per-capita energy consumption and 42^nd in per-capita natural gas consumption.

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

Notwithstanding the potential costs and benefits of restricting natural gas infrastructure or the impact of the new procedures on approvals for projects for gas companies or service for property owners, the public argument over this issue tends to boil down to prioritizing climate change or economic growth and energy independence.

End Fossil Fuels, Now! Climate activists argue that the threat of climate change is so severe and so imminent that a policy of abolition is the only viable or moral path forward.  If we can’t shut down the fossil fuel industry overnight, the least we can do is stand in the way of any effort to sustain, let alone strengthen its existing operations here in Massachusetts.

Drill, Baby, Drill!  Advocates for fossil fuels argue that national security and the American economy depend on affordable oil and gas and any effort to hinder the industry will only serve to weaken the country, drive up energy costs, spur inflation, and send jobs overseas.  Massachusetts is particularly vulnerable as a high-cost, cold-weather state. 

Evidence-based Argument in Favor:

Although climate change is a global crisis, effective responses will have to come from all levels, including state and local initiatives.  There is no silver bullet and there can be no ultimate solution unless and until every man-made source of greenhouse gas is reduced or eliminated.  This is no easy or short-term task, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act now wherever progress is possible to develop and evaluate viable strategies for a carbon neutral future.  The Commonwealth is well on its way to becoming a model that other states and countries can learn from. 

In Massachusetts, natural gas accounts for about one-third of total energy consumption as measured in BTUs and close to 40 percent of all our greenhouse gas emissions.  The share of natural gas in the Commonwealth’s total energy portfolio has been fairly stable over the past 10 years, but total natural gas consumption last year as measured in cubic feet was the lowest it’s been since 2006, down almost 14 percent per capita over the past decade.  In 2023, residential consumption of natural gas was the lowest it’s been since 1998, down almost 25 percent from its peak in 2019. 

At the same time, the demand and supply of all-electric homes has been increasing nationwide.  The Northeast has trailed behind, but with recent affordable technology advances (e.g., heat pumps), there is growing acceptance of electricity as the primary heating source.

In other words, Massachusetts is already weaning itself off natural gas, so government action to further limit its use will mostly serve to accelerate an existing market trend, rather than force change on unwilling consumers.

The future of natural gas as an affordable energy source also presents challenges as its existing aging infrastructure deteriorates and as clean energy options become more cost competitive.  According to a 2020 study, it will cost about $14 billion to repair leaks in Massachusetts’ natural gas distribution system.  It will cost even more to upgrade or expand capacity.

The costs of energy infrastructure investments are typically financed over 30 years, so assuming even a gradual downward trend in natural gas demand these financing costs will outlast the need for the existing capacity, let alone any expansions, creating useless and expensive stranded assets and uneconomic incentives for continued natural gas consumption.  In other words, it’s cheaper to invest in clean energy that will be here for the long-term, than it is to reinvest in overbuilt natural gas infrastructure that is becoming obsolete.

The case against improving or expanding existing natural gas infrastructure also applies to enabling new gas hook ups for residential and commercial customers.  Most home buyers and business operators don’t care how their heat or electricity is generated, as long as it’s safe, reliable and cost-competitive.  Concerns about the cost and disruption of converting from gas to electricity in an existing home or business are certainly real, but they are much less important in the case of new construction or major renovations.  And over time, the on-going cost of utilities to consumers and businesses will likely be cheaper with all-electric buildings.

The new Fossil Fuel-Free Demonstration pilot program in 10 municipalities is a modest first step to determine whether and how demand for fossil fuels can be further reduced without causing significant disruptions or unreasonable costs.

Evidence-based Argument Against:

Notwithstanding the need to address the challenges posed by climate change, the reality is that any transition away from fossil fuels will have to be gradual.  At a global level, dependence on fossil fuels is increasing and will likely continue to increase for years to come due to the growing demand from the economically developing world and the difficulty of substituting renewables for fossil fuels in many agricultural and industrial sectors.  These macro trends are likely to overwhelm any conceivable growth in efficiency or clean energy production.

Here in Massachusetts, over 70 percent of all homes are heated by natural gas or oil.  A similar percentage of our electricity is generated by fossil fuels.  And less than 1.5 percent of vehicles are electric.  The magnitude of this installed base makes dramatic shifts to renewables a generational project at best.  An indicator of the challenge is the fact that renewable energy constituted 75.1 trillion BTUs of energy consumption in Massachusetts in 2022, the same amount as in 2015.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that electricity demand, which still relies heavily on fossil fuels, is likely to grow.  ISO New England projects net electricity demand will grow by close to 2 percent per year through 2033, adding up to a 17 percent increase over 2023 levels after taking into account savings through efficiency measures and the expansion of user-generated solar energy. 

Accelerated adoption of electric vehicles and the potential for new local data centers to accommodate Artificial Intelligence (not to mention cryptocurrency mining) could push electricity demand even higher, as could major state and federal policy initiatives to increase manufacturing and housing.

Even with significant growth in the share of electricity provided by solar and wind, energy storage limitations make fossil fuels a long-term necessity to avoid intermittent service during periods of peak demand, which ISO New England projects will grow by over 3 percent per year during the winter months.  According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “assurance of natural gas supply remains a critical energy issue for the region.”

The new state law on permitting upgrades to natural gas infrastructure is designed not only to prevent any expanded capacity, but to actually reduce throughput by requiring a prolonged review process for proposed investments with preferential consideration of non-gas alternatives.  Not only could this delay essential repairs, thereby raising health and safety concerns, but it will inevitably increase costs that will be passed on to residential and commercial users who are already paying some of the highest energy costs in the country.

The pilot project authorizing 10 municipalities to prevent new gas hook-ups seeks to directly restrict demand, rather than supply of natural gas by requiring electrification of new or renovated buildings.  Although the costs to construct a new single-family house fully wired for electricity are comparable to homes built to accommodate natural gas after taking into account state and federal subsidies, it’s unclear whether the economics will hold for multi-family dwellings (i.e., affordable housing) without even more generous government support.

Importantly, the advocates for the Fossil Fuel-Free Demonstration are already pressing ahead for a much broader statewide program that would severely restrict consumer choice and place an even greater burden on the power grid, before any evidence from the new pilot program can be collected – not to mention evaluating the impact of recently enacted “stretch” building codes to maximize energy efficiency of new construction, which have been adopted voluntarily in over 300 municipalities across the state.

Beyond the existing risks and costs associated with these new regulations restricting or reducing access to natural gas, the negative attitude of the incoming Trump administration towards renewables will likely mean that optimistic projections for expanding clean energy production will have to be scaled back, at least for the next four years.  As we enter this new political context at the federal level, Massachusetts should take a more cautious approach to moving away from natural gas to ensure an adequate, stable and affordable energy portfolio.

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground

Greenhouse gas emissions are a prime example of the tragedy of the commons.  We all share the same atmosphere, regardless of national sovereignty over the land below, which means we can’t control our own destiny when it comes to climate change.  As a result, there’s a natural inclination to act in ways that maximize each country’s own (short-term) interests, while ignoring the larger (long-term) interests of the planet and humanity as a whole.  This dynamic is even more pronounced at the state and local level.  After all, what difference does it make if Massachusetts reaches its net zero goal by 2050, if the rest of the world doubles its carbon emissions – especially if we achieve these goals by further increasing the already high cost of living and doing business in the Commonwealth?

Given competing priorities and potential trade-offs, state policymakers have little choice but to take (relatively) incremental steps, balanced by mitigation measures, while figuring out who should bear the costs and risks. 

As a general rule, incentives tend to work better than mandates or regulation as a means of efficiently changing behavior, while being flexible enough to address differing and changing circumstances.  So, in this case, natural gas infrastructure projects that are likely to produce a significant net reduction in carbon emissions could be encouraged by making them eligible for fast-track permitting and concessionary financing (possibly through an expanded capitalization of Mass Development or a new public-private infrastructure bank).  Similarly, tax credits or public-private financing incentives (via an expanded Mass Save program) for all-electric homes, multi-family dwellings and businesses could be increased, both for new construction and conversions. 

Incentivizing carbon-reducing investments by the natural gas industry and consumers would also produce secondary benefits in terms of increased jobs and economic activity, at least partially off-setting the added cost to taxpayers of larger public subsidies.

James Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

• Percent of MA primary energy consumption that comes from natural gas (2022): 32.9% in BTUs
• Percent of MA carbon emissions that come from natural gas (2021): 38% (millions of metric tons of CO2)
• Percent of MA primary energy consumption that comes from renewable sources (2022): 5.7% in BTUs
• Percent of MA in-state electricity generation that comes from natural gas (2023): 63%
• Percent of MA in-state electricity generation that comes from renewable sources (2023): 34%
• Percent of MA homes using natural gas for heating (2022):  50.5%
• Percent of MA homes using electricity for heating (2022):  19.9%
• Change in MA natural gas consumption from 2012-2022 (BTUs): +0.3%
• Change in MA renewables consumption 2012-2022 (BTUs):  +14.3%
• Per-capita natural gas consumption in MA compared to US (2022): 61.9 million BTUs (MA) vs. 100.3 million BTUs (US)

Sources and Resources:

Massachusetts Clean Energy Climate Metrics (https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-clean-energy-and-climate-metrics)

U.S. Energy Information Administration State Profile and Energy Estimates (https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=MA#119)

U.S. Energy Information Administration State Energy Consumption Estimates: 1960-2022 (https://www.eia.gov/state/seds/sep_use/notes/use_print.pdf)

U.S. Census Bureau survey (https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2022.B25040?q=B25040:+House+Heating+Fuel&g=040XX00US25)

FRED Economic Data, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMISSCO2TOTVTTTOMAA)

The post Should we limit expansion of natural gas infrastructure in Massachusetts? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF – on proposals to impose a moratorium in new prison construction or expansions — is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate.  

Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college; free MBTA service; the state’s right-to-shelter law; allowing municipalities to enact rent control; whether the state should legalize supervised injection sites; whether to give school librarians more control over book selection while limiting the say of school committees and parents; whether Massachusetts should establish a reparations commission; and whether to require voters to produce an ID before casting their ballot. 

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table.  

The Proposal: 

Impose a moratorium on new prison construction or expansions. 

Background: 

There are over 1 million Americans who are currently imprisoned, a per-capita rate that ranks sixth highest in the world and far higher than the average for other Western democracies. In Massachusetts, the state prison population stands at about 6,200, the lowest per-capita incarceration rate in the country and a decline of almost half since the peak in 2012. An average of 8,000 people are also typically housed in the state’s county jails.  

As a result of the steady decline in the number of state prisoners, several facilities have been decommissioned by the Department of Correction, including the recent closure of the state’s oldest men’s prison, MCI-Concord. Besides reducing prison capacity to match the shrinking number of prisoners, there have been calls for prison closures from proponents of “de-carceration,” especially in the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd killing.   

In Massachusetts, Sen. Joanne Comerford and Rep. Chynah Tyler have introduced a bill that would impose a five-year moratorium on any plans to build new facilities or expand existing jail or prison capacity. A similar bill passed in the Legislature in 2022 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker. Routine repairs or renovations to improve living conditions would still be allowed under the proposal, but the Healey administration’s plan to invest $50 million to build a new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham, the country’s oldest women’s prison, would be put on hold. 

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers: 

Although there are significant fiscal issues associated with prison capacity and construction, the argument between advocates over a moratorium on new or expanded correctional facilities is centered on the role of incarceration in the criminal justice system. 

Defund the Prisons! Advocates for prison closures or even “abolition” assert that most imprisonment is inherently dehumanizing, and too many criminal offenses are the result of race-based oppression, which should be addressed through an end to “over-policing,” fewer prosecutions of non-violent offenses, and more robust social services. They argue that closing prisons will force the criminal justice system to change by reducing or eliminating prison sentences as a viable option. 

Don’t Do the Crime, If You Can’t Do the Time! Activists opposed to prison closures argue that justice demands that people who commit crimes be punished with jail time sufficient to send a clear message that illegal behavior has consequences and to take them off the streets to prevent them from causing further harm.   

Evidence-Based Case in Favor: 

There are three basic rationales for imprisonment: punishment, prevention, and rehabilitation.  Punishment reflects primarily a social impulse to express a moral judgment regarding the violation of law, based on a principle of individual responsibility. Prevention is based on the expectation that the threat of prison provides a deterrent to potential repeat offenders as well as to others who might otherwise consider committing a crime. And rehabilitation is grounded in the belief that time in prison provides an opportunity for individuals to turn their lives around so they can become productive or at least law-abiding members of society upon their release. 

Unfortunately, most prisons are effective only in punishment, with little to show for prevention or rehabilitation. 

According to a 2021 study of 24 states by the US Department of Justice, over 80 percent of people released from state prisons in 2008 had been arrested at least once within the next 10 years, with almost two-thirds being arrested within just three years. On average, these former prisoners were arrested more than five times within 10 years of their release.   

Other studies have indicated that imprisonment may actually increase the likelihood of future criminal behavior, especially among young people who are forced to live in close quarters with other criminals. The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice states directly that “the data show long prison sentences do little to deter people from committing future crimes.” 

These findings suggest that not only is prison time by itself not a deterrent to law-breaking, but that rehabilitation efforts inside prison are largely ineffective, too. 

The consensus opinion from most studies in the 1960s and 1970s was that “nothing works” when it comes to prisoner rehabilitation programs, a finding that helped inform subsequent efforts to focus on harsher prison sentences instead. More recent criticism of the effects and efficacy of “mass incarceration,” as well as the costs, has led to renewed interest in a variety of initiatives, especially those related to the widespread and growing social and mental health challenges of today’s prison population.   

Although many of these newer therapeutic and educational strategies are promising, at least on a small scale, there is little solid evidence of their overall efficacy. Moreover, it is not at all clear that they are as effective as they could be in a community setting, away from the isolated and inhospitable environment of prison, which can be a barrier to healing or personal growth. 

Besides the ineffectiveness of prison regarding prevention and rehabilitation, there are serious humanitarian and safety concerns regarding incarceration, not just for prisoners, but also for staff. State prison death rates in the US related to suicide, homicide, and overdoses have almost tripled since 2001. A 2020 investigation by the Department of Justice found that mental health services in Massachusetts state prisons fail “to provide adequate mental health treatment to prisoners experiencing a mental health crisis and instead exposes them to conditions that harm them or place them at serious risk of harm.” In addition, according to Massachusetts Department of Correction data, there were over 700 cases of assault against prison personnel from 2020 to 2023. 

Even if one accepts the need for punishment, the rates of imprisonment in Massachusetts based on race and ethnicity suggest that there are deep-seated inequities in the state’s criminal justice system that are resulting in excessive prison time for people of color. According to The Sentencing Project, Massachusetts ranks 12^th worst among all states in terms of the differential in Black-White imprisonment rates and last in terms of the Latino-White gap. At least one recent study suggests that this inequality exists in part because of disparities in both charging and sentencing decisions, tied to the race or ethnicity of the accused. 

Today, Massachusetts state prisons are operating at about 60 percent capacity and there would be even more available space if prison were limited to only those violent predators or hardened criminals for whom there may be no other option.     

Building or rebuilding state prisons to sustain, let alone expand, existing capacity is unnecessary and diverts scarce resources away from non-custodial programs that offer a better chance of success both in turning around the lives of convicted criminals and improving safety and stability in their communities. 

Evidence-Based Case Opposed: 

For more than a decade, the Massachusetts prison population has been steadily declining, Today, Massachusetts has the lowest imprisonment rate of any state. At the same time, the share of state inmates imprisoned for non-violent offenses has shrunk to just 25 percent. 

Taken together, these data points confirm that claims of “mass incarceration” do not apply to Massachusetts in 2024. 

As a result of these long-term trends, the Commonwealth has been reducing and repurposing its state prisons, closing underutilized facilities and investing in upgraded or dedicated spaces for health and social services. Given the fact that Massachusetts has some of the oldest prison buildings in the country, capital improvements sometimes require full replacement, rather than simply renovation.   

A case in point is MCI-Framingham, which first opened its doors almost 150 years ago, when Rutherford B. Hayes was in the White House. It has been cited by the state Department of Public Health for numerous repeat violations of health and safety codes and has been a focus for the state’s capital planners who recommend building an entirely new facility. The Healey administration’s proposal to fully replace MCI-Framingham would actually shrink its current capacity and enable more robust on-site rehabilitative services. 

Due in large part to the shrinking prison population and relatively high wage rates for corrections officers, the Department of Correction spends almost $140,000 per inmate per year, as much or more than any other state. These costs include spending on education and training, as well as behavioral and mental health services.   

Although there is no silver bullet to prevent recidivism or ensure successful re-entry, there is reason to believe that well-designed and executed rehabilitative programs can produce positive results.   

For example, a recent study by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security found clear benefits to male prisoners who lacked a high school diploma and also had substance abuse problems if they successfully completed the “Correctional Recovery Academy” while earning a high school equivalency credential. These prisoners had a one-year recidivism rate that was 60 percent lower than similar prisoners and even one-third lower than those prisoners who didn’t have a substance abuse problem and already had a high school diploma. 

A broader 2013 RAND meta-analysis found that “inmates who participate in correctional education programs have 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than those who do not.” 

While prison can provide opportunities and resources for individuals to address their challenges and become more productive and law-abiding citizens, it also has the important direct effect of reducing crime and victimization by removing habitual criminals at least temporarily from society, often referred to as “incapacitation.” Relatively few long prison sentences are meted out to first-time felony offenders, and many receive no prison time at all. Most prisoners have been arrested and even convicted multiple times before they are sentenced to jail. Left on the streets   they would undoubtedly continue to break the law. 

Opponents of new prison construction are correct in pointing out the Commonwealth’s expensive excess capacity. There truly is no need for more space. Indeed, the Department of Correction would be better off financially and operationally with less. Nevertheless, the mismatch between the outdated existing spaces and the appropriately higher expectations for humanely housing and supporting today’s prison population makes a moratorium on new construction counterproductive. 

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground: 

Although activists view prison construction through an ideological or moral lens, there is little disagreement over the practical reality that Massachusetts needs to right-size and modernize its prison space to match a smaller, higher need population, whether or not a moratorium bill is enacted. While there may be limited solid evidence for significantly or sustainably reducing recidivism at scale through rehabilitation services, there is broad agreement that prison operating cost savings could be used to pilot and support evidence-based strategies, both in prison settings and in community-based programs. 

Efforts to ensure an effective and non-discriminatory criminal justice system that can prevent excessive or inequitable imprisonment also have bipartisan support, as witnessed by lopsided votes in 2018 to pass the federal First Step Act and Massachusetts’s own Criminal Justice Reform Act. Implementing those laws in good faith and ensuring that policing, prosecution, and sentencing practices are fair and just will require ongoing data collection, evaluation, and oversight. 

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker. 

Data: 

Massachusetts criminal justice statistics 

• State prison population: 6,215 (August 2024), down 29 percent since 2019. 
• State prison population by race and ethnicity (January 2024): White (39 percent); Black (30 percent); Hispanic (28 percent); Other (3 percent). 
• Rates of serious mental illness among state prisoners: 36 percent (December 2023), up from 24 percent in 2019. 
• Percentage of state prisoners without a high school diploma or equivalency: 52 percent (January 2024), down slightly from 53 percent since January 2019. 
• Three-year recidivism rate of prisoners released from state prisons: 30 percent (2016 release cohort), unchanged since 2011 release cohort. 
• Annual violent crime offenses: 19,252 (2023), unchanged since 2018. 
• Annual property crime offenses: 146,723 (2023), up 18 percent since 2018. 
• Average capacity utilization in state prisons: 59 percent (August 2024), down from 75 percent in August 2019. 

Sources and Resources: 

Massachusetts Department of Corrections Reports (https://www.mass.gov/report/department-of-correction-reports). 

Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/politics-policy/political-issues/criminal-justice/). 

National Institute of Justice (https://nij.ojp.gov/). 

Bureau of Justice Statistics (https://bjs.ojp.gov/). 

The post Should we impose a moratorium on new prison construction or expansions? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate.  (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college, free MBTA service, the state’s right-to-shelter law, allowing municipalities to enact rent control, whether the state should legalize supervised injection sites, whether to give school librarians more control over book selection while limiting the say of school committees and parents, and whether Massachusetts should establish a reparations commission.) 

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal: 

Require registered voters to present valid identification prior to voting.

Background:

In Massachusetts, voters are not required to provide documentation of their identity to vote, either in person or by mail. Instead, they attest verbally or in writing to their name and address before receiving or submitting a ballot. It is illegal to knowingly misrepresent who you are or where you live when casting a ballot. 

In response to COVID-related public health concerns, most states instituted more relaxed voting procedures in 2020 to limit the extent to which voters needed to come to the polls in person, including longer early voting periods and fewer restrictions on mail-in ballots. Following that election and the ensuing controversy over “election integrity,” however, some states have enacted legislation to at least partially roll back those new provisions and eight states have passed new voter ID laws. Thirty-six states currently require voters to provide some form of valid identification, and 21 of these require or request photo IDs.

A ballot initiative to require Massachusetts voters to produce photo identification was submitted last year but failed to garner enough signatures to qualify for the 2024 ballot. Bills to require IDs are regularly filed in the Legislature but fail to make it out of committee.

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

The partisan disagreement on voting rights is typically framed as election integrity vs. equal voter access. In the end, however, the differences tend to come down to trust, or lack thereof, with advocates on both sides tending to lean in the direction they believe is most favorable to their own candidates.

Stop the Steal!: Republicans who emphasize election integrity are convinced that Democrats play fast and loose with the rules in deep “blue” precincts, stuffing ballot boxes and encouraging unregistered voters (and non-citizens) to vote. 

Jim Crow 2.0!: Many Democratic activists believe that Republicans systematically try to “suppress” voter turnout in heavily “blue” districts, especially those that are disproportionately Black and Latino. 

Evidence-based Case in Favor:

Voter identification is a common practice, not only in most US states, but in most democratic countries around the world. All 47 European countries have some form of voter ID requirements, as do other major democracies, such as Canada, Mexico, India, and South Africa. Indeed, Massachusetts is much more the exception than the rule.

There is little or no evidence, in the United States or elsewhere, that voter ID requirements reduce voter turnout. Neither New York nor California has voter ID laws, and yet their turnout in the 2020 presidential election was under 60 percent. Turnout in Wisconsin and Michigan, both of which have photo ID voter requirements, was over 70 percent. 

A 2021 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that voter ID laws “have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.” The NBER findings echo those of a 2012 study by MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which found that when voters were notified of voter ID requirements, the effect on turnout was marginally positive, including among “low-propensity” voters.

States like Georgia that have long-standing voter ID laws and recently placed limits on its COVID-era voting rules are often accused of “voter suppression,” even though taken as a whole, their voting rules look a lot like those in Massachusetts – and in some cases are even more “progressive.”

Unlike Massachusetts, Georgia allowed no-excuse absentee ballots even before COVID. After amending its election laws in 2021, Georgia still has an early voting window of three weeks, compared to Massachusetts, where early voting begins 11 business days prior to an election. Like Georgia, Massachusetts requires voters to specifically request a mail-in or absentee ballot (i.e., they are not mailed automatically to all registered voters). In 2016, Georgia enacted automatic voter registration through the department of motor vehicles; Massachusetts enacted a similar law just last year. 

As for Georgia’s ID requirement, even Georgia voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams has said, “no one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote,” although she has advocated for more flexible rules governing valid forms of identification. Although IDs are not required for voting in the Commonwealth, voters may be asked to produce a valid ID under certain specific circumstances. 

Voter participation in Georgia during the 2022 election saw the highest off-year turnout in its history, exceeding turnout in Massachusetts, while turnout of Georgia’s Black registered voters that year was 52 percent, compared to 33 percent among Massachusetts’s Black voters.

According to a 2021 Monmouth University poll, 80 percent of Americans support voter ID laws, with large majorities across all demographic groups.  Even though there is little direct evidence that voter ID laws reduce incidents of outright fraud, the fact that they are so popular provides an added level of comfort among voters that the process is transparent and fair, thereby improving confidence that the outcomes are valid and trustworthy.

The bottom line is that voter ID laws provide greater assurance of election integrity, without restricting access to voting or reducing participation by people of color.

Evidence-based Case Opposed:

Given the fact that there is little or no evidence that ineligible voters are affecting electoral outcomes, insisting on voter IDs seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Even without IDs, voters still need to be registered and attest to their identity and place of residence, subject to legal penalties. 

It’s common sense that if you remove arbitrary barriers to voting and give people more options for how to vote, more of them will be willing and able to do so. The question is whether more accommodating voting procedures undermine the integrity of elections, and on that question the jury is in. Notwithstanding numerous recounts, investigations, and court cases in multiple jurisdictions, no credible evidence has been presented to indicate that COVID-era reforms produced any illegalities. 

If voter ID requirements don’t reduce fraud, they can affect who is able to vote, often in ways that disadvantage voters of color. Relative to whites, more than twice as many Black and Latino adults lack a valid ID, such as a driver’s license or passport, causing voter ID laws to have a disproportionate negative effect on voters of color – especially among those who are low-income. 

Compounding the equity problem is the growing use of mail-in ballots. Mail-in voting typically requires two signatures, one on the ballot and one on the outside of the envelope, but in general no ID is needed. In other words, most people who vote by mail are exempt from ID requirements. According to a national study, only 38 percent of Black voters used a mail-in ballot in the 2020 election, compared to 45 percent of white voters.

Reducing barriers to voting and simplifying the process can increase participation of eligible voters. By way of example, the relaxation of election procedures in 2020, contributed to historically high levels of voter turnout, without any evidence of increased fraud. In 2020, almost half of all voters mailed in their ballot and another quarter voted early in person. Only about one-quarter of voters showed up at polling places on election day in 2020, compared to 86 percent in 2000. Overall turnout in 2020 was almost 67 percent of eligible voters, compared to just over 54 percent in 2000 – both years with hotly contested presidential races.

It’s impossible to consider stricter voting requirements without appreciating the history of Black Americans and their systematic exclusion from the ballot box until the mid-1960s through a variety of arcane rules and regulations designed to suppress Black voting both directly and indirectly. This disgraceful historical record, which was overturned only through the heroic struggle of the Civil Rights Movement, has engendered deep suspicion of any effort to place new barriers in front of voters, no matter how technical or innocuous they may sound, especially when such proposals are paired with unfounded partisan charges of malfeasance in predominantly Black precincts. 

In this context, it’s easy to see why many Black voters and other people of color feel that voter ID laws present threatening opportunities for racially motivated electoral manipulation and disenfranchisement, which can in turn undermine their willingness to turnout on election day, unfairly skewing the results.

In close elections where every vote counts, even small effects on participation can make all the difference, especially when they are not evenly distributed. To ensure everyone who is eligible to vote has an equal and accessible opportunity to do so, unnecessary barriers like voter ID requirements should be eliminated or avoided. 

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground:

The extremes on both sides of this argument believe the other is manipulating the electoral process to win at all costs. Put in somewhat less emotionally charged terms, advocates for election integrity prioritize going the extra mile to ensure the rule of law and voter confidence, even if that means some eligible voters are discouraged or excluded, while those who are primarily concerned with expanded and equitable voter access concentrate on maximizing participation, even if it means some voters turn out to be ineligible.

Not all voter ID laws are the same and some states have workarounds for people who show up at the polls without proper documentation, including allowing them to sign a sworn affidavit attesting to the fact that they are who they say they are. 

Beyond any specific policy changes, empowering a truly independent third party to oversee elections might help to address the trust issues on both sides, while enabling a more objective consideration of promising strategies to both improve election integrity and increase voter participation in all communities. For example, in some states, non-partisan commissions are employed to draw district lines with little or no role for the legislature or governor, to prevent gerrymandering. A similar approach could be taken to overseeing elections, rather than relying on state and local elected officials. 

Other strategies for increasing participation that don’t affect concerns about potential wrongdoing might include non-partisan primaries, even-year municipal elections, and scheduling general elections on a holiday, like Veterans Day.

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

• Percent of US eligible voters participating in 2020 presidential election: 67 percent (highest turnout since 1992)
• Percent of Massachusetts eligible voters participating in 2020 presidential election: 66 percent (#26 in state rankings)
• Percent of eligible US voters participating in 2020 presidential election, by race/ethnicity (survey data): White = 70%; Black = 59%; Asian = 43%; Hispanic = 38%
• Number of states with voter ID requirements: 36 (21 require photo IDs)
• Number of states with early voting: 46
• Number of states with “no-excuse” mail-in voting: 34
• Number of states with same-day registration: 21

Sources & Resources:

US Census Bureau Voting and Registration Tables (https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting/data/tables.html)

2022 Gallup Poll on Early Voting and Voter ID Laws (https://news.gallup.com/poll/403052/eight-americans-favor-early-voting-photo-laws.aspx)

Vote 411 Survey of State Voter Laws (https://www.vote411.org/voting-rules)

National Conference of State Legislatures:  Voter ID Laws (https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id#toggleContent-15991)

MIT Election Data (https://electionlab.mit.edu/)

The post Should we require voters to produce an ID before casting a ballot? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college, free MBTA service, the state’s right-to-shelter law, allowing municipalities to enact rent control, whether the state should legalize supervised injection sites, and whether to give school librarians more control over book selection while limiting the say of school committees and parents.) 

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal:

Appoint a commission to make recommendations for how the Commonwealth should provide reparations to descendants of enslaved people.

Background:

Ever since the end of the Civil War there have been debates over whether and how to provide former slaves and their descendants with some kind of recognition and compensation for the grievous harm of slavery, starting with General William Tecumseh Sherman’s short-lived order to allocate a strip of land along the coastlines of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to freed slaves and to give each formerly enslaved family 40 acres and a mule. 

Federal legislation to establish a national reparations commission was first introduced in 1989 and has been reintroduced repeatedly ever since. More recently, interest in reparations has grown at the local level, with several states and numerous cities, Boston among them, establishing commissions to make policy recommendations, including monetary compensation for their roles in the slave trade and subsequent acts of racial discrimination.  In 2019, Evanston, Illinois, enacted a first-in-the-nation reparations ordinance, enabling Black residents to receive a $25,000 payment from the city if they experienced housing discrimination before 1969, at which time the city banned the practice.

State Sen. Liz Miranda and state Rep. Brandy Fluker Oakley have introduced legislation to establish a reparations commission for Massachusetts to consider not only the long-term harm and financial impact of slavery and segregation, but also other more recent injustices, such as “redlining, educational funding discrepancies and predatory financial practices.”

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

Advocates on both sides of this issue are not really focused on the idea of a commission itself, but rather the intended outcome: compensation for Black people to redress the cumulative economic and social impact of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism over the course of American history.

Racial Reckoning, Now!:  Activists in favor of reparations argue that past and present attempts at creating a truly equal society have failed in the face of deeply ingrained and ongoing structural, systemic racism. Rather than wait for the world to change, it’s time for America and Massachusetts, which have benefited greatly from the exploitation of Black people, to repay a debt that is long past due.

Dignity, Not Dependency!: Advocates opposed to reparations argue that the underlying cause of persistent Black poverty is not historic or current racism, but rather the breakdown of the Black family, the weakening of community and religious institutions, over-reliance on government-funded social programs, and the scourge of drugs and crime. Paying reparations will only reinforce the paternalistic perception that Black people are not capable of lifting themselves up.

Evidence-Based Case in Favor:

Notwithstanding the end of slavery almost 160 years ago and the end of legal segregation 60 years ago, the social and economic disparities between Black and White citizens in the Commonwealth and across the United States remain unacceptably large. And even though federal and state anti-poverty programs since the late-1960s have disproportionately benefited Black Americans, their net impact on reducing these disparities has been marginal at best. Indeed, more recently Black-White gaps have sometimes grown larger with regard to economic indicators such as wealth and income, as have social indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and single-parent families.

Although there are areas of meaningful improvement with potential for even greater progress, such as educational attainment and business formation, the rate of nominal change is far too slow to fully close the gaps between Blacks and Whites for many decades, if ever.

For example, a recent Brookings Institution study on Black business formation reports that “if Black business ownership continues to grow at [the current] rate…it will take 256 years to reach parity” with White rates of business ownership. In 2010, the percentage of White people with bachelor’s degrees between the ages of 25 to 29 was 17 percentage points higher than that of Black people. By 2022, while the share of young Black people with bachelor’s degrees had grown by almost two-thirds, the gap remained the same.

There’s little debate that the 345 years of slavery and Jim Crow in the South exacted a terrible price on the capacity of Black Americans to become self-sufficient, let alone economically competitive with White Americans. But other racist federal and state policies in both the North and South have done significant lasting damage, too. Notably, government funding for higher education and housing, which formed the basis for much of America’s robust post-war economic growth and family wealth accumulation, explicitly excluded most Black people from participating. Not to mention discriminatory private practices, such as redlining, that were allowed to go on for years after legalized discrimination was supposedly outlawed.

Median Black household wealth in the United States was estimated to be just over $27,000 in 2021, compared to about $250,000 in White households. The picture locally is even more stark. In Boston, the Federal Reserve Bank estimates median Black household wealth to be effectively zero.

In other words, the strategies and policies that have been pursued over the past 50 to 60 years to generate economic and social equality for Black Americans are clearly inadequate to overcome the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and decades of both de jure and de facto discrimination.

Aggregating the national Black-White wealth differential of $223,000 per household translates into a national gap of about $3.5 trillion. Massachusetts’s proportionate share of that amount, based on its Black population, would be about $43.8 billion. 

Of course, this calculation ignores the many other direct and indirect human costs resulting from centuries of racial oppression, which might be treated as pain and suffering in the context of a lawsuit. In court, compensation for these additional damages can often double or triple a jury award or settlement, based on malfeasance far less odious than what has been inflicted on Blacks in America.

There are many other ways to calculate this societal liability and numerous ways it could or should be addressed. There are also complex questions about who should receive payments or services, over what period of time, and how they should be paid for.

Rightly conceived, a commission on reparations should not only assess and quantify the financial and social challenges that need to be overcome, but also identify some viable policy options for accelerating progress and closing gaps, specifically for US-born Black Americans whose families who have directly or indirectly suffered the effects of slavery and pervasive racial discrimination in the United States. And even though Massachusetts was the first state to ban slavery and was the center of the abolitionist movement, the Commonwealth profited greatly from the slave trade and has had a long history of both de jure and de facto racial discrimination, producing some of the largest Black-White wealth and income gaps in the country.

There are no easy answers, but it is unquestionably an issue in need of fresh thinking at both national and state levels. The alternative is to give in to complacency about the seeming futility of ever achieving a truly fair and equal society. In other words, the ultimate purpose of reparations is not just how to pay compensation for past harm, but how to help ensure a better future.

Evidence-Based Case Opposed:

The case for reparations to compensate Black residents of Massachusetts for the persistent social and economic effects of historical and systemic racism is understandable but ultimately a distraction from more productive and pragmatic efforts to address yawning racial disparities throughout the US and here in the Commonwealth.

In 2020, the California legislature authorized the appointment of a commission to make recommendations regarding reparations for Black Californians who are descendants of slaves. The language in the reparations bill pending before the Massachusetts Senate tracks closely to that of California’s law. 

The California commission report took into account lost income and wealth caused directly by slavery and overtly discriminatory laws and policies of the past, as well as more recent government actions that have yielded a disproportionately negative impact on Black communities, concluding that the financial harm that the state of California “caused or could have prevented” amounts to approximately $1.2 million for each eligible Black Californian. The commission’s final report also included over 100 policy recommendations.

Since the California commission issued its report, public opinion in the state has trended sharply against reparations, with broad-based majorities in opposition, including among Latinos, independent voters, and voters across every age group. Only about three-quarters of Black Californians support reparations, with some more conservative or heterodox Black opinion leaders questioning its efficacy and the political wisdom of alienating non-Black low-income and working-class erstwhile allies.

Given the poll numbers and the exorbitant price tag, there is little likelihood that even California’s heavily Democratic legislature will appropriate significant funds for reparations any time soon. Continuing to press the recommendations risks even more backlash.

If you apply the California economic estimates to the Massachusetts Black population born in the United States (close to 400,000 people), the total reparations bill would be about $475 billion – more than eight times larger than the state’s annual budget.

Even if significant reparations were warranted, this is clearly a national, not a state issue, given the potential scale of liability and the fraught history of race relations throughout the United States, as well as the implications for potential future claims by other aggrieved minorities, such as Native peoples. But while the US Constitution allows compensation for individuals who have suffered harm at the hands of the government, it bars payments or benefits to entire classes of people based primarily on race or ancestry, a principle that was recently affirmed by the US Supreme Court in its decision regarding college admissions policies.

Setting aside the legal issues, the dollars at stake are potentially so large that serious proposals for reparations will inevitably defer or derail consideration of other ways to create a more equal Commonwealth, as policymakers and advocates wrestle with highly technical and politically charged issues about who is eligible to receive compensation, how much they should get, and who should pay. And if a reparations bill were to pass, it would likely lead to offsetting cuts in social programs that are beneficial, if not essential, to many Black families and communities.

Inequality in America along racial and ethnic lines is surely an intractable and complex problem. Forming a commission as a precursor to implementing reparations is held out as the solution to racial division and inequality, but it is likely to generate more heat than light, potentially deepening the divide and weakening more practical efforts to redress past and present wrongs.

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground:

While there have been numerous attempts to develop a comprehensive policy agenda to address racial discrimination and reduce Black poverty, dating back at least to the Great Society, it’s hard to deny that even though those efforts have produced significant progress, the overall results fall far short of where we need to be as a country and a Commonwealth. Although there may be openness among a broad cross-section of the public to stepping back and revisiting the issue of racial inequality, there appears to be little appetite for reparations, per se, which can be seen as a vehicle for relitigating the past or branding America as a fundamentally racist society that remains caught in the grip of White supremacy.

Whether through an independent commission or legislative task force, there may be value in focusing more narrowly on the issue of wealth inequality, especially with regard to reducing gaps in home ownership and business formation in predominantly Black communities. Equally important could be a deeper focus on education and workforce development, especially related to college and career pathways in high-demand, high-growth sectors where Black workers and professionals are under-represented or under-paid. Additional consideration might be given to authorizing certain targeted civil procedures and remedies for individuals and their families who have suffered significant direct injury, due to past government-sponsored or condoned acts of racism.

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

Black-White Gaps and Trends (US)

• Infant Mortality (2021):  10.55 per 1,000 vs. 4.36 per 1,000 (2.4 times higher, gap is 2.5 percent bigger since 2000)
• Single-Parent Households (2021):  64 percent vs. 24 percent (2.7 times higher, gap is 7.7 percent bigger since 2000)
• 4^th Grade Reading, Below Basic on NAEP (2019): 52 percent vs. 23 percent (2.3 times higher, gap is 4.1 percent smaller since 2000)
• 8^th Grade Math, Below Basic on NAEP (2019): 53 percent vs. 20 percent (2.7 times higher, gap is 8.0 percent smaller since 2000)
• 6-Year College Graduation from 4-year degree programs (2022):  68 percent vs. 46 percent (1.5 times higher, gap is 11.4 percent smaller since 2002)
• Median Household Income (2022): $52,860 vs. $81,060 (35 percent lower, gap is 0.9 percentage points bigger since 2000)
• Poverty Rate (2022): 17.1 percent vs. 8.6 percent (2 times higher, gap is 32 percent smaller since 2000)
• Household Wealth (2021): $27,000 vs. $250,000 (90 percent lower, gap is 5 percentage points bigger since 2001)
• Home Ownership (2023): 46 percent vs. 74 percent (37 percent lower, gap is 2.6 percentage points bigger than 2000)
• Rates of Incarceration (2021): 901 per 100,000 vs. 181 per 100,000 (5 times higher, gap is 32 percent smaller since 2001)

Sources and Resources:

U.S. Census Bureau, Black (or African American) Data:  https://www.census.gov/about/partners/cic/resources/data-links/african-american.html

Federal Reserve System, Changes in Racial Inequality in the Survey of Consumer Finances:  https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/greater-wealth-greater-uncertainty-changes-in-racial-inequality-in-the-survey-of-consumer-finances-accessible-20231018.htm#fig1

Centers for Disease Control, Health of Black or African American non-Hispanic Population:  https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/black-health.htm

Pew Research Center, Facts About the U.S. Black Population:  https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/

The post Should Massachusetts establish a reparations commission? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college, free MBTA service, the state’s right-to-shelter law, allowing municipalities to enact rent control, and whether the state should legalize supervised injection sites.) 

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table.  

The Proposal: Strengthen the legal authority of school librarians to choose which books to acquire and maintain in public school libraries, while limiting the ability of local school committees, individual parents, or advocacy groups to overrule their decisions. 

Background: 

Under Massachusetts law, school committees have fairly broad authority, but with the adoption of the Education Reform Act of 1993, the Legislature attempted to place some guardrails around their powers to enable district administrators to exercise greater control over day-to-day personnel and educational matters. School committees, however, retain responsibility for approving annual budgets and setting high-level educational goals and policies, enabling them to establish criteria for acquiring library books. As a practical matter, decisions about book selections are often delegated to school librarians.  

Although school committees are generally empowered to deal with parental and community complaints, they do not have authority to remove books that are already on the shelves in school libraries, except for good cause involving a valid educational reason or concerns about obscenity. These criteria, of course, are subject to interpretation and debate, but according to precedent from the US Supreme Court, school committees cannot remove a library book just because they disagree with the ideas or ideology it contains. Regarding the definition of obscenity, school committees are required to evaluate a book in the context of current “community standards,” including the extent to which it depicts sexual content in such a way as to elicit “prurient interest.” 

Guidelines from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education generally discourage school committee involvement in making decisions about educational materials, except to the extent they reflect a major expense or a significant shift in a district’s curriculum.   

State Sen. Julian Cyr and state Rep. John Moran introduced a bill last year that would add statutory provisions strengthening the role of school librarians and establishing mandatory procedures to clarify and constrain the authority of school committees in making decisions about library books. 

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers: 

The debate over school library books has generally been cast in terms of freedom of speech vs. parental rights, but it has been precipitated recently by divisions on the cultural hot-button issues of gender identity and anti-racism. 

No Book Bans!: Advocates for preventing parent groups and school committees from deciding what books to stock in school libraries argue that educational resources need to reflect the interests and affirm the identities of all students, including those who may feel marginalized.  They argue further that educators should be empowered and supported in making choices about what books or materials are appropriate for a classroom or school library, without outside political or parental pressure. 

Government is Not My Co-Parent!:  Parental rights activists maintain that many schools have embraced progressive social and political ideologies that are contrary to the views of many, if not most, parents. By making books available to students that promote a “social justice” agenda, advocates claim that schools are exceeding their proper role, while stigmatizing religious beliefs and traditional values, introducing ideas to young children about sex and gender that are developmentally inappropriate and dividing students from one another on the basis of race. 

Evidence-Based Case in Favor: 

Society is changing rapidly, demographically and socially, and schools have no choice but to respond accordingly in order to meet the needs of their students. There is little debate that educators must try to ensure that no child is discriminated against, bullied, or shamed while in school and that all children feel welcomed and supported. This basic obligation is not about promoting a political or social agenda, but rather providing an environment where all students can learn, which is the core responsibility of the public education system. 

One way to support students who may feel marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity is to provide them access to age-appropriate educational materials that reflect their experience. Creating a safe and welcoming learning environment also requires that from an early age all students develop a shared understanding of the diversity in their school and the wider community, a mission that is defined and endorsed through state regulation, guidance, and grant funding. 

Equally important, students need access to information and perspectives from differing points of view to prepare them to be engaged citizens in an increasingly diverse and divided country. 

Given this context, it’s incumbent upon school libraries to develop and maintain a broad array of books that give students the opportunity to freely explore their interests and learn more about themselves, their community, and their country. 

Parents and community members should have a voice in how their public schools are run and what they teach – this is what elected school committees, school advisory councils, and parent associations are all about. Unfortunately, these established channels for receiving and incorporating citizen input have been increasingly pre-empted by a relatively small number of vocal activists with political agendas, frequently coordinated by national advocacy groups, such as Moms for Liberty. 

According to a recent survey by the American Library Association, in 2023 there were 37 attempts to restrict access to one or more books in Massachusetts schools and libraries.  Another survey of library staff conducted by several Massachusetts library organizations found that almost half of the respondents reported “they reconsidered displays and books or items featured due to negativity surrounding book challenges.” In Great Barrington, complaints about an allegedly obscene book even led local police to pay an official visit to the middle school library. 

To prevent an even more politicized environment from further disrupting school libraries or inappropriately limiting student access to books that have been vetted by trained educators for their educational value, it has unfortunately become necessary to enact legislation that clarifies and strengthens the role of librarians to help them comply with official state policy and to simply do the job for which they were hired. 

Evidence-Based Case Opposed: 

Public schools are inherently political institutions and school libraries, unlike private booksellers or even public libraries, are established to serve a specific educational purpose, within the context of state regulation and local oversight by elected officials. Equally important, since school attendance is mandatory, there is an obligation for schools to do their best to accommodate or balance the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests of students and their families. This is no easy task, but it’s unavoidable. 

As a practical matter, schools will never be able to make everyone happy all the time. The challenge is how to be transparent and responsive in a way that takes public and parental input seriously, without abdicating responsibility for exercising sound professional judgment. Put differently, public school educators are public servants who should respect and balance the legitimate interests of their stakeholders, rather than pursue their own agendas or routinely dismiss the views of people with whom they disagree. 

Part of the energy behind challenges to book collections in public school libraries is the perception among many conservatives of a liberal bias among educators and librarians, especially as reflected in their professional associations. According the book selection criteria established by the American Library Association (ALA), school library collections should “represent differing viewpoints on controversial issues,” and yet ALA’s elected national leadership leans decidedly left, as do the leaders of Massachusetts’s largest teachers union, which represents most librarians. 

There is no question that the extent and intensity of controversy surrounding school libraries has grown substantially over the past several years, especially from conservative parents (albeit not exclusively: see efforts to ban certain books by Dr. Seuss). Most of the turmoil, however, has taken place in states like Florida and Texas, which according to a study by PEN America account for almost two-thirds of all book restrictions or removals, with only one such instance occurring in Massachusetts. 

Equally important, many of the so-called “bans” on books have not actually resulted in removal, but instead have limited access for younger children or instituted procedures for parental consent, actions that are broadly supported by most parents, but opposed by the ALA.  According to a 2023 study conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, almost three-quarters of books that were reported as banned by PEN America were still available in school district libraries. 

The bottom line is that school libraries are not the exclusive purview of school administrators or librarians; they are an integral part of a public education system that must be responsive to the perspectives of all its students, parents, and local communities.   

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground: 

Notwithstanding the ideological battle that is being waged over public school curriculum and school library books, there is general agreement that parents have a legitimate interest in their child’s education. Although the ALA rejects the notion that librarians should be gatekeepers who act on behalf of parents, it does acknowledge that “parents and guardians have the right and the responsibility to determine their children’s…access to library resources.”   

But a hands-off approach that prioritizes a student’s freedom of choice is not consistent with the role schools and educators are expected to play in guiding student learning and development.  And besides, school libraries don’t carry all books, only those that have been screened and selected; so, a student’s choice is inherently limited. 

Although school districts are encouraged to establish book selection criteria to set the ground rules for librarians, many districts don’t have such policies, and if they do, the criteria are often vague or simply delegate the decision-making to the best judgment of library staff. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education could consider establishing stronger statewide guidelines for the adoption of such policies (as is the case in about 70 percent of states), based on a model developed by a diverse and impartial panel of librarians, educators, school committee members, and parents. 

What seems to be of greatest concern to most parents is the extent to which their own children have access to certain books they find objectionable. Some districts are attempting to thread the needle by providing parental controls on library cards, so that students can’t borrow books that include what their parents consider to be inappropriate content, while freeing librarians from having to make individual judgments. 

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker. 

Data: 

• Number of MA school librarians and media center directors (2023-24):  624 FTEs (1 librarian per 1,466 students), down 25% since 2008-9 
• Number of MA districts and charter schools with fewer than one full-time librarian or media center director:  196 (49% of total), up 54% since 2008-9 
• Number of school library books per student in the US (2012):  22 (approximately 11,000 per school) 
• Number of school library book acquisitions per student in the US (2011-12):  0.9 per year (approximately 450 per school) 

Sources and Resources: 

National Center for Education Statistics, Selected statistics on public school libraries/media centers, by level of school 

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Staffing Report for Librarians and Media Center Directors 

PEN American, Banned in the USA: Narrating the Crisis  

The post Should we give school librarians more control over book selection, while limiting the say of school committees and parents? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate.  (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college, free MBTA service, the state’s right-to-shelter law, and allowing municipalities to enact rent control.)

For each proposal in the series, I will provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I’ll then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief will conclude with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal: 

Authorize the operation of “supervised injection sites” (SIS) to provide users of illicit intravenous drugs an indoor place to inject themselves under supervision of trained personnel, with access to sterile supplies, such as clean needles.

Background:

A bill is pending in the Massachusetts Legislature (S.1242) to authorize a 10-year pilot program that would direct the state Department of Public Health to license public or private health and social service organizations to establish “overdose prevention centers” that “provide a hygienic space where participants may consume pre-obtained controlled substances.” In addition to preventing or responding to overdoses, staff would also provide information about health risks associated with drug use and facilitate access to addiction services. 

People possessing drugs inside a licensed center and staff employed by the center would be exempt from prosecution under the Commonwealth’s drug laws. Although the US Department of Justice has previously taken the position that supervised injection sites are illegal under federal law (21 U.S.C. Section 856), the Biden administration has not taken action to prohibit them and is not expected to do so.

The model outlined in the Massachusetts bill is based on a program authorized by New York City and operated by OnPoint NYC, which opened in 2021.  Minnesota and Rhode Island are the only states to enact legislation authorizing safe injection sites, with a location scheduled to open in Providence this year.  Approximately 150 safe injection sites exist in 16 countries, including close to 40 sites in Canada. Sites are typically located in neighborhoods where there is already a high degree of public drug consumption.

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

Advocates on this issue tend to disagree about whether reducing illicit drug use is primarily about public health or public safety.

Drug Use is a Disorder, not a Crime!: Advocates of supervised injection sites argue that drug users are suffering from a medical or biochemical condition, which is largely out of their control. As a result, SIS supporters do not believe users should be subject to arrest or prosecution, but instead should be provided health and addiction services with few conditions to save their lives and treat their disease.

Just Say No!: Opponents of supervised injection sites believe that drug users are a danger to themselves and others, while often degrading public spaces and neighborhoods where they congregate to buy, sell, and use. Instead of prioritizing law enforcement to protect the public and limit access to illicit drugs, SIS opponents argue that its supporters are enabling and normalizing drug use, encouraging more young people to experiment with drugs while laying the political groundwork for outright legalization.

Evidence-based Case in Favor:

Opioid use disorder is a global crisis that shows no sign of abating. The National Institutes of Health estimate that approximately 3 million people in the United States have experienced or currently suffer from opioid use disorder and more than 500,000 are dependent on heroin. A large percentage of these users became addicted to opioids as the result of legal prescriptions, typically to relieve pain.

There is no cure for opioid use disorder, but there are medical treatments and other addiction services that can reduce cravings and mitigate dependency. As with other addictions, such as alcoholism, however, staying sober requires ongoing effort and support, and is often fraught with false starts and setbacks.

Because opioids are so addictive and lethal, while treatments are only partially effective, the first priority has to be the reduction of harm to users, while giving them time and support to get help in bringing their addiction under control.

Supervised injection sites have existed for several decades, mostly in Europe, and multiple studies have shown they can be effective in preventing overdoses and deaths among their clients, even reducing overdoses and deaths in the neighborhoods where the centers are located. Besides their positive impact on overdoses, the sites can also help reduce the spread of disease, including HIV, by ensuring their clients are injecting in a clean environment with sterile paraphernalia. By providing a safe space, SIS also enables drug users to avoid dangerous locations where they might be abused, assaulted, or even killed.

There are no easy answers or quick fixes to drug addiction or the opioid crisis.  As difficult as it is, helping drug users gain access to services is the only way forward, but studies repeatedly fail to show that successful treatment can be compelled. “Low threshold” supervised injection sites are an essential component of a broader strategy to inform drug users about the availability and efficacy of services, while developing trusting, non-judgmental relationships that can encourage voluntary steps towards recovery.

Evidence-based Case Opposed:

Supervised injection sites are undoubtedly safe places that prevent overdoses and deaths on their premises, but for many, if not most, drug users who avail themselves of SIS, these centers are just one place among several where they inject illegal substances. As a result, SIS do not fully protect their clients from unhealthy or unsafe situations. 

More important, there is little evidence to date that SIS have any meaningful positive impact, either directly or indirectly, on the larger opioid crisis. In Canada, which has the most supervised injection sites in the world, opioid usage remains at crisis levels, with trends that mirror those in the United States. In Vancouver, which is home to a dozen SIS, the first of which opened in 2003, drug deaths have increased by a factor of seven since 2013.

Studies suggest that drug users who patronize supervised injection sites are somewhat more likely to seek out addiction treatments and other health or social services, but it’s unclear how long clients persist or whether they become drug-free over time. 

Given the limitations in the scope and quality of these studies, it’s also not clear whether people who have enough concern for their health or safety to access the centers in the first place are inherently more predisposed to eventually seek help on their own. And there is little, if any, research on whether SIS have a larger impact on the health of illicit drug users compared to other intervention strategies, such as needle exchange programs or the more widespread distribution of Narcan (naloxone), the anti-overdose treatment.

Since SIS clients have to bring their own drugs to the sites, they are by definition continuing to violate state and federal laws prohibiting drug sales and possession. As a result, the presence of supervised injection sites requires local officials and police to turn the other way with regard to the sites themselves and their immediate environs, which can lead to a more lax approach to drug laws, generally. For example, last year British Columbia, where the Vancouver sites are located, decriminalized possession of small amounts of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy. 

No matter how well intentioned, supervised injection sites are an unproven strategy to address drug addiction and the ongoing opioid crisis, with potential unintended consequences that could outweigh any benefits.

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground:

The one thing that is clear about the global opioid crisis is that no one has yet devised a viable and scalable strategy for significantly reducing drug usage, addiction, overdoses, and deaths, whether through law enforcement or public health. In the face of such widespread suffering, it’s not surprising that policy makers are looking for creative approaches, even if they are untested or incremental. 

Given this discouraging situation, a reasonable approach in the near term might be to carefully design and pilot potential solutions, including SIS, that can be rigorously evaluated to determine if they are worth expanding and replicating. 

Running multiple controlled experiments with consistent oversight and research methods requires coordination, as opposed to an ad hoc or decentralized approach that relies on private organizations or state and local governments. So, this might be a job for a collaborative initiative involving federal health and law enforcement agencies. (The National Institutes of Health recently awarded a contract to study the two existing sites in New York, as well as the new site that is planned for Providence.) 

In the meantime, efforts to increase affordable access to drug rehabilitation programs and “medication assisted treatments” could be pursued, consistent with new federal regulations, in tandem with expanded mental health services and other basic needs supports, such as health care, housing, and job placement.

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths: 109,360 (2022), up 55% percent over 2017

MA Drug Overdose Deaths: 2,331 (2022), up 16% over 2017 and up 144% over 2013

Percent of U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Related to Opioids: ~75% (2021)

U.S. Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations (manufacture, sale, and possession): 766,595 (2022), down 78% from 2017

Percent of U.S. Arrests for Drug Manufacture or Sale: 12% (2022)

MA Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations (manufacture, sale, and possession): 4,432 (2022), down 55% from 2017

Percent of MA Arrests for Drug Manufacture or Sale: 37% (2022)

Sources & Resources:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Drug Overdose Epidemic: Behind the Numbers (https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/data/index.html)

Massachusetts Dashboard on Opioid Statistics and Overdose (https://www.mass.gov/lists/current-overdose-data)

FBI Crime Data Explorer (https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/arrest)

The post Should Mass. allow supervised injection sites? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Earlier essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college, free MBTA service, and the state’s right-to-shelter law.)

For each proposal in the series, I will provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I’ll then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief will conclude with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal: 

Enact a state law authorizing municipalities to limit annual residential rent increases and impose an additional “transfer fee” on high-priced real estate to help fund affordable housing development.

Background:

Massachusetts in general, but Greater Boston in particular, is one of the most expensive places to live in the country.  Although this is a reflection of a strong economy and high levels of average wealth and income, there is a risk that our high cost of living could dampen future economic growth and exacerbate income inequalities by undermining the state’s competitiveness and squeezing low-to-moderate income households that do not fully benefit from rising incomes. 

Since the passage of a ballot initiative in 1994, municipalities in Massachusetts have been precluded from imposing restrictions on rent increases (known as rent control or rent stabilization). Similarly, under the state constitution, municipalities may not impose new taxes without approval from the Commonwealth, and since the passage of Proposition 2½ in 1980, municipal property taxes cannot exceed certain limits.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the City Council have submitted so-called “home rule” petitions to the Legislature (as has Brookline), seeking authority to restrict annual residential rent increases to six percent, plus inflation, with a combined cap of 10 percent. At the same time, the city is seeking authority to impose a two percent marginal “transfer fee” (technically not a property tax) on the value of all real estate transactions above $2 million. The Commonwealth currently levies a statewide transfer fee of $4.56 per $1,000 on all real estate transactions, with higher rates on Cape Cod.

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

The argument between the activists regarding rent control and additional real estate taxes is generally framed as a conflict of rights or entitlements between tenants and property owners.

Affordable Housing is a Human Right!: Rent control activists tend to believe that in an affluent society everyone is entitled to a decent home they can afford. While landlords have a right to a “reasonable” income, tenants’ rights advocates argue they are not entitled to gouge their residents or drive them out with unreasonable rent increases. At the same time, they argue that developers and other real estate owners who make significant “unearned” profits from a general increase in property values should have to help subsidize lower-income renters and home buyers.

Rent Control is Legalized Theft!: Advocates for landlords generally maintain that they have a fundamental property right to charge whatever rent they want, based on supply and demand, just like any other business is free to set its own prices. Similarly, they argue that it’s unfair for income from real estate sales to be treated differently than income or capital gains from any other source.

Evidence-based Case in Favor:

The development of new housing in Massachusetts is extremely slow and costly, relative to other parts of the country. As a result, the Commonwealth ranks 42 among all 50 states in housing permits per capita, at almost half the national average. Without a robust construction market, the cost of housing tends to rise steadily, especially in a state like Massachusetts, which has the highest per capita personal income in the country.

For a variety of reasons, including restrictive municipal zoning regulations and procedures, there are few opportunities for developers to invest in significantly expanding the state’s stock of residential housing, especially when there are better opportunities elsewhere. When it comes to rental units, these general market conditions produce low vacancy rates, leading landlords to increase returns on their existing properties by raising rents or pursuing condo conversions, contributing to dislocation of lower income families and neighborhood gentrification. 

As with any product or service, the tighter the supply relative to demand, the higher the price. The problem is that for many low-to-moderate income families, their earnings are not rising nearly as fast as their rent. Since 2012, median gross rent in Massachusetts has grown almost 30 percent faster than median household income and almost two-thirds faster than the average income of the bottom quartile. The cost of housing presents a particularly acute problem in Greater Boston, where it accounts for about 33 percent of the average household budget, ranking seventh among major metropolitan areas in the US.

The bottom line is that housing is becoming unaffordable for a growing number of Massachusetts families, who have few, if any, alternatives, creating a distorted and inequitable rental market that unduly favors landlords, with little that can be done in the near-term to change the underlying supply and demand equation.

Given this state of affairs, it’s reasonable to allow municipalities to consider modest limits on annual rent increases, in order to avoid further disruptions to families and neighborhoods, at least during this particularly tight housing market.

While providing relief to renters now, state and local policy makers need to take more ambitious steps to enable and encourage housing production, especially affordable housing for low-to-moderate income families. Making a meaningful impact on the pace of development will require policy changes, but also more public resources to subsidize projects that would otherwise not be viable or competitive in the current economic environment. 

While the state is taking steps to increase its level of investment, municipalities need the ability to mobilize new resources too, but in light of the legal limitations on local taxing authority, there is little practical opportunity to do so.

Authorizing municipalities to impose a modest charge on the largest real estate transactions, with revenues earmarked specifically for affordable housing, would help stimulate new construction of multi-family dwellings in those high-need, high-demand neighborhoods that lack adequate housing stock.  Given Massachusetts’s overheated real estate market, especially in Greater Boston, it’s highly unlikely that a two percent fee on the value of transactions above $2 million will have any appreciable impact on demand or home sales.

Evidence-based Case Opposed:

The underlying problem of housing costs in Massachusetts is the lack of supply due to the costs and bureaucratic challenges of new construction. Restricting rent increases and taxing real estate transactions will inevitably have the effect of reducing incentives even further for private investment in housing of all kinds, which will only serve to make the problem worse. It also places a disproportionate burden on the real estate industry, rather than the general public, for funding a broad-based social challenge.

There is a long history of rent control in Massachusetts (pre-1994) and around the country, which paints a consistent picture of market distortions and unintended, often inequitable, consequences. New York City is perhaps the largest, longest lasting example.

Today, close to one million New York City homes are covered by its rent regulation policies, about 44 percent of all rental units. There are restrictions on removing apartments from the rent-control system and eviction protections for tenants, including the right of a tenant to pass on an apartment to a family member. As a result, many units have been part of the rent control system for decades. Importantly, landlords are not required to rent these apartments to lower-income tenants, so many of the beneficiaries are upper-income households, who also tend to be savvy enough to find and hold the best units. Among other consequences, these rules can lead to higher vacancy rates and lower maintenance standards in rent-controlled apartments.

More broadly, there is a general consensus among economists that rent control is not a solution to the affordable housing shortage. A 2018 study by the center-left Brookings Institution summarizes the issue this way: “While rent control appears to help current tenants in the short run, in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood.”

A 2019 study out of Stanford University on rent control in San Francisco found a very similar impact on the rental market. The study’s authors conclude that “since many of the existing rental properties were converted to higher-end, owner-occupied condominium housing and new construction rentals [which are exempt from rent restrictions], the passage of rent control ultimately led to a housing stock which caters to higher income individuals.”

Taxing real estate transactions has similarly distorting and counterproductive effects. A 2019 study by PFM Group Consulting cites a “definitive” Toronto study, which “found that Toronto’s 1.1 percent tax caused a 15 percent decline in the number of sales and a decline in housing prices about equal to the tax.”

Unfortunately, the track record of rent control and higher real estate taxes suggests that they are not solutions to our affordable housing crisis.

Potential for Common Ground or Higher Ground:

Assuming both sides of this argument support more housing and lower occupancy costs, the disagreement might be more about whether one prioritizes immediate relief and stability in urban neighborhoods or more long-term regional solutions, and who should bear the added expense.

Expanded rental subsidies or vouchers, especially during periods of rapidly rising rents or low vacancy rates, might provide more direct relief for lower-income tenants in the near term, without creating perverse incentives for landlords. Relaxation of local zoning restrictions and permitting procedures, especially for multi-family dwellings, including triple-deckers and “in-law” apartments, not just in cities like Boston, but also in surrounding suburbs, could also spur housing production. 

This is the focus of the MBTA Communities Law. Additional direct subsidies or tax credits to for-profit and non-profit developers might likewise encourage the construction of more units for middle-income families, who might not otherwise be eligible for government support. Innovative public-private partnerships for mixed-income developments to complement traditional public housing might also be worth exploring or expanding.

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

• Median monthly Massachusetts rent (2022):  $1,634
• Average monthly Boston rent (June 2023):  $3,116 (up 12.5 percent compared to June 2022)
• Real-time availability rate for Boston apartments (June 2023): 3.2 percent
• Percentage of subsidized housing units in Massachusetts (June 2023):  9.7 percent
• Percentage of subsidized housing units in Boston (June 2023): 19.2 percent
• Median single-family home price in Greater Boston (May 2023):  $900,000 (up 2.9 percent compared to May 2022)
• New housing units permitted for construction in Massachusetts per 1,000 existing units (2022):  5.9 (compared to 11.7 national average, 10^th lowest in the U.S.)

Sources & Resources:

Massachusetts Zoning Laws:  https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-zoning

U.S. Census Data on Housing and Income:  https://data.census.gov/

Real-Time Availability Rates for Boston Apartments:  https://bostonpads.com/blog/boston-rental-market/2023-mid-year-boston-apartment-rental-market-report/

The post Does rent control help or hurt the quest for affordable housing? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series for CommonWealth Beacon examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate.  (Other essays in the series have addressed proposals for free community college and free MBTA service.)

For each proposal in the series, I provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief concludes with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table.  

The proposal:

Restrict the existing state guarantee of emergency housing assistance to only homeless families who are United States citizens and have been residents of Massachusetts for at least one year.

Background:

In 1983, Massachusetts enacted the first-in-the-nation “right-to-shelter” law, guaranteeing all homeless families with children and pregnant women access to temporary housing and other emergency services. Forty years later, Massachusetts is still the only state with such a law.  New York City has a similar policy, which dates back to a 1981 court mandate.

Last summer, in the wake of a significant increase in migrant families coming across the US-Mexican border, Gov. Maura Healey issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency in order to suspend the statutory housing guarantee as the state’s shelter system was reaching its maximum capacity and the projected costs to the state budget were rising rapidly. Mayor Eric Adams has taken similar action in New York City. 

In September 2023, Massachusetts state Rep. Peter Durant (now a state senator) filed a bill (HD 4561) to restrict the entitlement to shelter to US citizens with at least one-year of Massachusetts residency.

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

Because the current spike in homelessness is being driven by an influx of people entering the United States across the southern border, Massachusetts’s right-to-shelter law has become entangled in the larger issue of immigration policy.

Build the Wall!: Massachusetts’s reputation for generous entitlement benefits is a magnet for migrants coming over the southern border, creating a vicious cycle that leads to more and more government spending and more and more in-migration.  The result is an unfair burden on Massachusetts taxpayers.

All are Welcome!: Regardless of what the federal government or any other state does, Massachusetts should hold itself to a higher moral standard, by doing whatever it takes to find adequate shelter for our homeless families, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how long they’ve been here.

EVIDENCE-BASED CASE IN FAVOR: 

The capacity of the Commonwealth’s emergency shelter system has been overwhelmed during the past three years by surging immigration and longer-term shelter stays. It is no longer tenable for the state to sustain its housing guarantee indefinitely, either in terms of fiscal resources or shelter capacity.

As of January 2023, the homeless population was about double what it was in 1983 and the number of homeless families was five to six times greater. On a per-capita basis, Massachusetts’s homeless population was about 40 percent higher than the national average, and almost twice that of Florida. The numbers are even higher now, with 7,500 families living in emergency housing provided by the state (not counting so-called overflow shelters), which translates into about 24,000 people, about half of whom are recent immigrants. 

According to the Healey administration, the cost of the emergency housing program will require over $1 billion in additional state funding through fiscal year 2025. Annual state spending for family shelters and services was about $180 million in fiscal year 2021, before the current surge began.

Increases in immigration, especially among asylum seekers and people with “temporary protected status,” are affecting almost every state, but Massachusetts attracts a disproportionate share. One measure of where migrants go after they enter the United States is the location of asylum filings. In 2022, there were almost 18,000 asylum filings in the Commonwealth, close to seven percent of all asylum filings in the United States that year, over three times the Massachusetts share of the total US population.

Notwithstanding the right-to-shelter entitlement, there are not always enough available beds in the right places to meet the demand on any given night. As a result, some families who are seeking shelter can’t access it right away and the waiting lists are growing. Even though new arrivals do not jump to the head of the line for emergency housing, they are granted equal status, so guaranteeing shelter to migrants inevitably means some local residents will not be able to access shelter as the system runs out of space.

In addition, expanding emergency shelter to meet the increased demand is resulting in the placement of homeless families in municipalities with little notice, which puts severe strain on the ability of cities and towns to keep their budgets in balance and provide essential services.  At the same time, the state is unable to equally distribute homeless families, so some communities are much harder hit than others – often in places that are already overburdened or can least afford it.

Federal rules and procedures governing legal entry for asylum seekers have been stretched to the point where migrants may enter the country, at least conditionally, for reasons having little or nothing to do with persecution or displacement due to war or natural disaster. And given the growing backlog of pending immigration cases, the vast majority of migrants who have been allowed temporary entry will likely stay here for at least several years. 

Without policy changes or additional resources at the federal level, the pressure on states like Massachusetts to provide more emergency services is likely to continue indefinitely. Until the federal government provides sufficient resources to meet the rapidly expanding need or takes other steps to restrain the growth in migration across the southern border, the burden falls on states to increase spending on their own, but there need to be reasonable limits – something the open-ended right-to-shelter entitlement precludes. 

EVIDENCE-BASED CASE OPPOSED:

When the right-to-shelter law was enacted four decades ago, there were only two state-supported homeless shelters in the entire state. Thanks to that law and increased funding, dozens more facilities were opened and over the years tens of thousands of families have been given temporary housing, keeping many of them off the streets. 

There is no doubt that Massachusetts and the country in general is suffering from a homelessness crisis, exacerbated by an increase in immigration. But taken in context, the number of people in Massachusetts without a place to live has been reasonably stable over time and has even declined in recent years. 

In January 2022, there were about 15,500 homeless people in Massachusetts, based on an annual “point in time” survey, about 2,000 fewer than were accounted for in 2012, and over 25 percent below the most recent peak in 2014. Massachusetts’s per-capita homeless population in 2022 was actually lower than it had been since at least 2007. The right-to-shelter law was in place throughout this period.

About 93 percent of Massachusetts’s homeless population had access to emergency shelter last year, compared to about 60 percent nationwide, and almost no homeless families were unsheltered.

Current numbers of unhoused individuals and families are higher now but given the success of the right-to-shelter law over the years, the appropriate response should be to further increase the capacity of our emergency shelter system, at least on a temporary basis, rather than permanently restrict eligibility.

Providing homeless families with a place to live is not just a matter of compassion. Sufficient emergency shelter helps ensure that these families are not living on the streets, which would create real economic, health, and social problems for affected communities.

Although more will have to be done, the state is allocating millions of dollars to mitigate the unanticipated costs to municipalities, which the administration plans to fund at least in part through existing reserves from prior year budget surpluses.

The solution is not to deny emergency shelter but to seek additional federal assistance and to more rapidly integrate new arrivals into the Massachusetts economy through an accelerated process for getting work permits.

The underlying long-term problem is the lack of affordable housing generally, including sufficient units for truly low-income families, as well as insufficient services and resources for individuals (including parents) suffering with mental illness and addiction. The migrant surge is making things worse in the moment, but it is not the primary cause of homelessness.

Importantly, Massachusetts’s right-to-shelter law is not really an open-ended entitlement, since it covers only families and pregnant women who are legally present (i.e., not undocumented) and facing substantial health or safety risk – not individuals or families who have a viable housing alternative. In addition, its implementation is “subject to appropriation” by the state Legislature.  In other words, the right-to-shelter law is designed to make the funding of emergency shelters and services a priority of state government, not unlike formula funding programs for schools. But it’s not a blank check. 

Homelessness is a human tragedy, so we have a collective obligation to provide at least a bare minimum of assistance, including emergency shelter — even without the right-to-shelter law. Watering down the law or placing further restrictive limits on who qualifies will only serve to weaken the state’s ability to address the long-term and ongoing humanitarian crisis of homelessness.

POTENTIAL FOR COMMON GROUND OR HIGHER GROUND:

The recent increase in homelessness tied to the surge in immigration has clearly overwhelmed the existing emergency shelter system, thereby putting unanticipated pressure on the Commonwealth’s right-to-shelter policy. While there may be reasons to re-evaluate the law in light of 40 years of experience and changing circumstances, the immediate challenge is to address the capacity crunch, and in that context both sides of the argument agree that the federal government is failing to fulfill its responsibilities and needs to do much more. 

In the meantime, even though there are no simple solutions, there may be viable approaches to both finding more space and reducing shelter utilization in the near term. 

The Commonwealth has under its control some properties that could potentially be used temporarily to accommodate a large number homeless migrant families and provide a more efficient staging area for state-provided or contracted resettlement services, including childcare, skills training, and job placement – even though these locations may be suboptimal, especially regarding access to locally based services, ethnically familiar communities, and potential employment opportunities.

At the same time, the state might consider placing a higher priority on policies and resources to keep families out of the shelters or shorten their stays by finding more suitable and sustainable options, including:

• increased emergency supports to prevent evictions (such as the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition, or RAFT, program);
• subsidies for households willing and able to take in otherwise homeless families and continued access to services for families that are doubling up with friends or family;
• faster turnaround times for filling vacancies in public housing; and
• more proactive and targeted case management.

Jim Peyser served most recently as Massachusetts secretary of education under Gov. Charlie Baker.

Data:

United States

• Number of homeless people (2023):  653,104 based on “point in time” surveys
• Percentage of homeless people who are part of families (2023): 28 percent
• Percentage of unsheltered homeless people (2023):  39.3 percent
• Number of annual “encounters” at the US-Mexican border (2023):  2.476 million, up 43 percent over 2021
• Backlog of immigration cases: 3.364 million, up from 819,000 in 2018

Massachusetts

•  Number of homeless people (2023): 19,141 based on January “point in time” survey
• Percentage of homeless people who are part of families (2023): 67 percent (highest in the US)
• Percentage of unsheltered homeless people (2023):  7.1 percent (4^th lowest in the US)
• Average annual household cost for a family in emergency shelter (Q2 2023): $65,423
• Average length of stay in emergency shelter (based on families exiting in Q2 2023): 482 days
• Backlog of immigration cases: 151,219 (7^th highest in the US), up from 27,579 in 2018

Sources & Resources:

Massachusetts Emergency Assistance Placement Data (https://www.mass.gov/info-details/emergency-assistance-ea-family-shelter-resources-and-data#emergency-assistance-placement-data-)

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, Annual Homelessness Assessment (https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahar/2023-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-in-the-us.html)

State of Homelessness Annual Report, National Alliance to End Homelessness (https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/)

Southwest Land Border Encounters, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters)

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University (https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/)

The post Should we repeal the state’s right-to-shelter guarantee? appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

Fourth in series

THIS ISSUE BRIEF is part of a series examining a variety of controversial local and national issues, focusing on specific policy proposals that are under active consideration. The premise of these essays, as outlined here and here, is that many important public policy issues are more complicated than the most fervent adherents to either side usually acknowledge, a dynamic that often hinders our ability to engage in thoughtful debate. (Read the earlier issue brief on free community college here.) 

For each proposal in the series, I will provide some basic background, with a high-level framing of the disagreement and the polarized “bumper sticker” arguments on both sides. I’ll then present what I believe to be the most reasonable evidence-based cases, pro and con. Each issue brief will conclude with reflections on possible avenues for finding common ground or higher ground and some basic data points, with links to useful resources, to help facilitate a rational and civil dialogue, ideally leading to agreement or at least understanding, if not in the halls of power, then maybe just around the dinner table. 

The Proposal: 

Eliminate fares on all MBTA subways, trolleys and buses.

Background:

In March 2022, the City of Boston, working in partnership with the MBTA and using $8 million in COVID-related federal funds, eliminated fares on three T bus lines in Boston, which run through parts of Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester. This targeted fare-free program is an extension of a pilot that began with one of these lines in 2021. No fares will be collected on the three routes through February 2024. The program is intended to help determine whether fare-free transit should become more widely available, based on an evaluation report that is scheduled for June 2024. Similar pilots are being implemented by several of the 15 regional transit agencies, which provide bus service in other areas across the state.

Sticking Points and Bumper Stickers:

Advocates on this issue tend to be either firmly pro-transit or pro-car, often seeing their opponents as having dangerous hidden agendas (i.e., mass transit as a path to socialism or cars as vehicles of live-free-or-die white flight).

Free Transit is Economic and Environmental Justice!: Advocates for eliminating public transit fares argue that America’s love affair with automobiles is destroying the environment and distorting the economy, spewing pollution and CO2 into the air, enabling inequitable suburban sprawl, and disadvantaging low-income workers who lack access to affordable and reliable transportation.

Mass Transit is a Money Pit!: Opponents of free mass transit claim that further subsidization will only lead to more waste and inefficiency, driven by a bigger bureaucracy, higher salaries and benefits for unionized transit workers, and unnecessary expansions to satisfy outdated urban planning visions.

EVIDENCE-BASED CASE IN FAVOR:

Mass transit is the lifeblood of all great cities and a critical support to workers and businesses, while providing an essential service for low-income individuals and communities. It also plays a major role in combating climate change. Unfortunately, the MBTA is struggling to fulfill its mission and potential due to a seemingly never-ending backlog of deferred maintenance, service interruptions, and declining ridership.

Fixing the T, or at least accelerating its improvement, will require expanded investment across the board, from daily operations to routine maintenance and major capital projects. At the same time, meaningful steps need to be taken to restore and increase ridership, post-COVID, in order to improve asset utilization and address long-standing challenges of equity and the environment.

Relying on flexible federal funds during the pandemic, dozens of cities and transit agencies across the country have begun implementing fare-free programs, similar to the limited pilot being run on three bus lines in Boston. In most, if not all cases, these initiatives are having a significant positive impact on ridership. The two Boston bus lines that became free in 2022 saw the number of trips increase by over 20 percentage points in the first year, about three times the increase across all of the bus lines in the system.

Although there are many factors affecting mass transit utilization, ridership is price sensitive, and its fluctuations are highly correlated with movements in the price of gasoline. Getting more people out of their cars and onto subway trains and buses requires a clearer and stronger price signal that won’t be affected by marginal changes in the cost of driving. Eliminating fares will get people’s attention and affect behavior.

An added benefit of eliminating fares is reducing the hassle and cost of fare collection. The process of collecting fares slows down the on-boarding process, leading to unpredictability in travel times and reducing customer satisfaction. It also costs money, requiring ongoing investment in technology, maintenance, and staffing, including security systems and personnel to combat fare evasion. 

The MBTA is in the midst of a multi-year “fare transformation” project, to enable faster and more flexible collections. The most recent estimates are that the full implementation will cost $600 million, with ongoing costs of $33 million per year. Eliminating fares would allow the T to reduce capital costs and realize permanent savings on its operating budget, and since fare collections represent less than 20 percent of the MBTA’s annual budget, the net financial loss of eliminating fares will be relatively small.

Importantly, the positive environmental impact of a sustained increase in MBTA ridership will have a significant contribution to the broader goal of making Boston and Massachusetts carbon neutral by 2050. Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts, and personal automobiles are one of the leading offenders.

According to the US Department of Energy, buses with an occupancy of 40 passengers are three times more efficient than cars with an average occupancy of 1.5 passengers. A train with 100 passengers is about 14 times more efficient. The higher the mass transit utilization rates the greater the impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Perhaps even more important is the disproportionate positive impact eliminating fares from all subways, trolleys. and buses will have on addressing the persistent challenge of income inequality across lines of race and ethnicity in Greater Boston. According to a recent MBTA survey, 58 percent of T riders in 2022 were non-white, up from 34 percent just five years earlier,  and almost 50 percent of riders had household income below $56,000, up from 35 percent. The annual cost of just one “link pass” Charlie Card for both buses and subways costs $1,080, which is close to a monthly grocery bill for a family of four.

An added benefit is providing assured and affordable transportation for essential workers, many of whom are employed in lower-wage jobs. As became clear during the pandemic, our social and economic fabric depends on thousands of people who keep our basic services and core infrastructure up and running, day in and day out, especially during emergencies. Eliminating fares would have a disproportionate positive impact on these unsung heroes.

Even though fare free transit by itself won’t solve these problems, it would be a meaningful and affordable step in the right direction.

EVIDENCE-BASED CASE OPPOSED:

The MBTA is already one of the most heavily subsidized mass transit systems in the country, with state and local contributions amounting to almost 80 percent of FY24 budgeted revenue, resulting in average fares that are quite reasonable and somewhat cheaper than other major transit systems. 

One-way subway fare is $2.40, while a one-way bus fare is $1.70. The subway fare was last increased in 2019, while the bus fare has been the same since 2016. By way of comparison, a one-way subway or bus ride in New York City costs $2.90. In Chicago, the standard one-way fare is $2.50 for the L and $2.25 for a bus.

Notwithstanding the historic capital investments over the past decade in the country’s oldest transit system, the MBTA’s infrastructure and capital equipment remain outdated and in disrepair, with performance that’s uneven and unreliable, at best. The most recent estimate for the investment required to bring the system fully up to a “state of good repair” is almost $25 billion. From one perspective, this figure is an unrealistically high best-case scenario; from another it understates the backlog, given the additional projected costs associated with improving resiliency in the face of climate change.

The bottom line is the MBTA has a revenue and service problem. Anything that reduces its resources can only deepen the challenge and slow the path to better performance. 

The T projects almost $420 million in total fare revenue this fiscal year, down over 35 percent since FY19, before COVID caused ridership and revenue to plummet. Historically, MBTA subways, trolleys, and buses have comprised over half of total fare revenue (53 percent in FY19, pre-COVID), with the rest coming from the commuter rail and a variety of other sources. So, eliminating subway, trolley and bus fares would take away over $200 million in revenue from the current yearly budget.

Supporters of fare-free service claim that it will increase ridership, and results so far from the current bus pilot in Boston suggest that’s true. But the early impact may be misleading, since existing riders, as opposed to new riders, may be taking more trips or just switching from other lines that still charge fares. Based on a 2022 survey, only 2 percent of riders on the free routes report taking a trip they would not otherwise have taken.

Even if the bus pilot shows promise from a cost-benefit perspective, that doesn’t mean we can assume the same will hold true for other modes of transit, which have different operating models and cost structures, serving different kinds of riders and communities that may respond differently to the elimination of fares.

To the extent lost revenue hinders efforts to improve service, initial ridership gains may be short-lived. Many factors other than cost affect demand and utilization. Riders and potential riders also make transportation choices based on considerations and perceptions of reliability, frequency, logistical convenience, comfort, and safety. In addition, alternative modes of urban transit are playing an increasingly important role in the competitive landscape, including ride-hailing services, bikes, and even scooters. Not to mention the long-term impact on ridership of the rise of remote work in the aftermath of COVID.

Of course, if fare-free policies are successful in substantially increasing ridership, they will put new pressure on the system to expand service, taxing already overstretched capital and operating budgets and exacerbating quality and performance challenges.

From an environmental perspective, eliminating fares for intra-city transit will likely have little or no impact on commuters who are currently driving cars into Boston from the suburbs, based on the experience of other cities in the US and Europe, which have tried to use free transit to get people out of their cars. The initiative could, of course, be extended to include the commuter rail, but then its economic benefits would accrue to many higher income individuals, thereby undermining the program’s focus on equity.

A final concern is the negative effect eliminating fares may have on the general public’s attitude towards funding mass transit. In particular, it’s likely that eliminating fares entirely on the T may be seen as unfair by Massachusetts taxpayers and voters who do not live in the Boston metropolitan area and do not use or have access to public transportation.

In the end, eliminating fares is a largely symbolic policy that threatens the financial stability of the MBTA and undermines ongoing efforts to improve quality, without providing significant or lasting benefits with regard to the local economy, equity, or the environment.

POTENTIAL FOR COMMON GROUND OR HIGHER GROUND:

Notwithstanding the polarized arguments over fare-free public transit, the large majority of people are interested in having mass transit systems that are clean, safe, reliable, efficient, and affordable.  A 2020 national opinion survey found that over 75 percent of Americans “strongly” or “somewhat” support improving and expanding public transit. So, the question for most people isn’t necessarily whether to spend money on public transportation, but how much to spend and how to get the best return on the investment.

Obviously, the fare-free bus pilot that is currently underway in Boston should be carefully and objectively evaluated to understand its costs and benefits. Similar studies should be done on the impact of free regional transit authority bus service. Importantly, researchers and policy makers need to look closely at how the effects of eliminating fares may differ across transit modes. 

To make public transit more affordable, variable and discounted fare strategies could be considered, including the potential of the T’s planned “fare transformation project” to enable targeted approaches to improving affordability and increasing ridership. 

By way of example, a recent study by an MIT researcher found that a 50 percent fare reduction for low-income T riders in Boston increased their number of transit trips by 30 percent, which is equal to or greater than what’s been observed in the fare-free bus pilot.

Other strategic discount strategies, up to and including free fares, could be considered that might not only increase ridership in the short-term, but also help build a larger customer base over the long-run, such as special youth or student passes.

Other non-fare initiatives to increase ridership through schedule and route changes, targeted promotions, and other improvements to the user experience could also be developed, piloted and evaluated across all transit systems, including commuter rail.

Data:

MBTA Statistics

• Annual Operating Budget, including debt service (FY24): $2.7 billion (+33 percent over FY19)
• 5-Year Capital Budget Plan (FY24-28): $9.7 billion (+18 percent over FY20-24 plan)
• FY24 Projected Fare Revenue (all modes): $418.5 million (-38 percent compared to FY19)
• FY24 Projected Fare Recovery Ratio (all modes): 18.9 percent of total operating budget (down from 42.7 percent in FY2019)
• Monthly Bus Pass: $55
• Monthly Subway/Bus Pass:  $90
• Weekly Ridership, all modes (November 2023):  5.2 million trips (-2.1 million since January  2020)

Sources & Resources:

Monthly US Transit Statistics from US Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics (https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/m9eb-yevh)

State Transportation Statistics from US Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics (https://www.bts.gov/product/state-transportation-statistics)

MBTA Budgets and Financials (https://www.mbta.com/financials)

American Public Transportation Association Ridership Trends (https://transitapp.com/APTA)

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