If U.S. states were companies that traded on the stock market, the only New England state with a “buy” rating would probably be New Hampshire.
Massachusetts could be called “Big Blue,” the tradition-bound leader cruising on its prior reputation, but falling behind smaller upstarts that have embraced innovation and rapid growth.
New Hampshire would be the scrappy upstart focused on innovation-fueled growth.
On Thursday, the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance held a press conference with New Hampshire Rep. Joe Sweeney of Salem in which they presented a devastating chart comparing New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Look around for additional data and the numbers are even worse for Massachusetts.
A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released this week found that 1/3 of Massachusetts residents say they’re considering leaving.
The only surprise is that it’s only 1/3. From 2010-2023, New Hampshire gained a net 98,879 residents from Massachusetts. That is, after counting everyone who moved from one state to the other over that time, New Hampshire was ahead by nearly 100,000 residents.
“Outmigration from the Commonwealth is accelerating at an alarming rate,” A Boston University Questrom School of Business study last year concluded.
That study noted the following:
Top three factors that have contributed to outmigration include level of income tax, housing and healthcare cost
Increased mobility, choice and remote work are adding to outbound migration
The financial impact in lost adjusted gross income and income tax revenue is in the billions of dollars
Massachusetts defenders say these are all retirees. That’s a myth. It’s a “growing exodus of prime age workforce and higher income earners,” the study found.
This is how bad things are for Massachusetts:
Since 2013, MA net outmigration has increased 1,100% to over 39,000 people
The annualized growth rate was 28.8%.
The Commonwealth lost $4.3 billion in adjusted gross income due to net outmigration and $213.7 million in income tax revenue in the 2020-21 tax year
Since 2011, outmigration has cost the Bay state $821 million in lost income tax revenue
By 2030, net outmigration could top 96,000 people per year
Did you catch the last point? By 2030, Massachusetts could lose nearly as many people each year as it lost to New Hampshire over 13 years.
Research on why people move from one state to another shows quite clearly that high taxes and a high cost of living prompt outmigration. They aren’t the only factors, but they’re extremely important.
There are many differences between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. One of the most important is that Massachusetts politicians have convinced themselves, like the leaders of IBM and the Big Three automakers decades ago, that their organization is so dominant it doesn’t have to compete.
New Hampshire politicians, for the most part, know better. They’ve spent decades putting the state into an extremely competitive position by keeping taxes low and spending restrained.
Massachusetts elected officials treat their residents like cattle to be milked. By contrast, New Hampshire elected officials treat their residents like grumpy, gun-toting individualists. People are responding accordingly.
