Tight Market for Boston Apartment Hunters
The Boston Globe
January 25, 2012
Mass. Jobless Rate Falls to 6.8%, Lowest in Three Years
The Boston Globe
January 20, 2012
Will 2012 be the year for economic optimists?
The Boston Globe
January 1, 2012
Smart growth funds running out
CommonWealth Magazine
December 29, 2011
Home sales up a fifth month
The Boston Globe
December 22, 2011
To Have and Have Not: The Growing Economic and Social Divide and its Implications for Educational Leaders
WBUR
Fall 2011
Check out our new blog on sustainability issues in Greater Boston:
MBTA and Transit Policy
The Kitty & Michael Dukakis Center for Urban & Regional Policy conducts research and works on policy issues affecting the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA or T) and smaller regional transit agencies throughout the Commonwealth because well-run, financially stable transit systems are essential to achieving a myriad of important urban and regional policy goals including improving mobility and access to opportunity, growing jobs and the state’s economy, combating sprawl, reducing dependence on imported oil and achieving greenhouse gas reduction goals.
The transit services provided by the (MBTA) and Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs) provide access to housing, employment, education, health care, and other critical services to everyone, regardless of whether they own or can drive a car. In order to achieve transit’s potential, however, adequate funding needs to be put in place to support and improve existing services, maintain transit vehicles and assets, and expand service frequency and availability to better serve both current and potential transit users statewide. Instead, transit services in Massachusetts are in crisis, with fare increases and service cutbacks already implemented or imminent at the RTAs and, now, at the MBTA.
The Dukakis Center supports smart and sustained investment in transit statewide, with the goal of creating the best public transportation system in the United States, one that can realize the full potential of transit as a transportation option of "first resort" and help the Commonwealth achieve its economic development, transportation and sustainability goals. As with all of our work, the Dukakis Center is committed to addressing transit finance and policy from a fresh perspective and to working with a broad range of partners and stakeholders to conduct research and create policy tools that address some of the most pressing challenges facing transit systems in Massachusetts and throughout the nation.
"While the financial picture is grim, it is important to note that the MBTA is too valuable an economic asset to permit its further deterioration or even collapse. A robust public transportation system provides vital economic and quality-of-life benefits to residents from all walks of life and to businesses in the communities it serves."
How to Bring the Jobs Back:
Freeze
Public Wages
By BARRY BLUESTONE
IN the face of this economic crisis, the federal government has all but declared unilateral disarmament. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has vowed to keep real interest rates near zero, but even at that level few are borrowing. Over at the White House and on Capitol Hill, the pursuit of deficit reduction has taken on a religious fervor just when the economy needs a stimulus.
What can President Obama do? Many are suggesting another try at increasing infrastructure investment, but that would do little to provide a quick boost. Here is a wildly conservative, yet refreshingly liberal, alternative. Mr. Obama should first call together the leaders of all public- sector unions and ask them to pledge to a two-year freeze on federal, state and local public employee wages and benefits in return for a commitment to no government layoffs.
The White House and Congress should then create a two-year, $100 billion program of federal aid to state governments to help them and their municipalities weather this economic storm. All of the money would be spent on keeping services from disappearing and providing new infrastructure and public goods, rather than increasing employee compensation.
To pay for the federal aid program, the White House and Congress should levy a two-year, 5.5 percent "profits tax" on corporations operating in the United States that earned more than $1 million in profits in 2010. Profits have rebounded nicely from the Great Recession and now stand at close to $1.8 trillion, but very little of that is going into producing jobs. If half those profits were made at companies with $1 million or more in corporate earnings, this tax would raise the $100 billion we need to pay for the aid to states.
Finally, even with the economy in vast disarray, there are millions of credit-worthy families who might buy a home if they were not so worried about seeing their new homes lose value. So the Department of Housing and Urban Development should create a "home price insurance" program that would insure home buyers against catastrophic loss if home prices were to fall. For a $500 processing fee, the two-year program would allow applicants to purchase an insurance plan covering 80 percent of any loss in home value. To benefit from the program, a homeowner would have to keep the home for a minimum of three years and maintain it in good order. The cost to the government is likely to be minimal.
These steps will not bring full employment back by next Labor Day. But at least we’d be putting up a fight.
Barry Bluestone is the dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and director of the Dukakis Center at Northeastern University.
By Barry Bluestone and Chase Billingham with Liz Williams, Yingchan Zhan, Tim Davis, Aaron Gornstein, Marvin Siflinger, Ann Verrilli, & Eleanor White
By Barry Bluestone & Thomas A. Kochan | October 2011
By Joan Fitzgerald, Andy Sum, and others
By Stephanie Pollack, Barry Bluestone and Chase Billingham
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