The good news: Massachusetts has more money than it knows what to do with. The bad news: Massachusetts has more money than it knows what to do with.
Mass. House Speaker Ron Mariano on Dec. 30, 2020. | Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via USA TODAY NetworkBOSTON —
After spending the first half of this year crafting budgets that struck careful balances between spending big and shoring up reserves, the state of play in Massachusetts highlights the financial challenges legislators and governors will have to navigate when they return to their state capitals in 2023 under potentially more volatile fiscal conditions.
“States are at this crucial inflection point,” Justin Theal, an officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ state fiscal health project, said in an interview. “They’ve experienced a lot of good fiscal and economic conditions. But that chapter in state budget policy may be coming to an end soon.”The pandemic sent most states into a panic mode. The stock market crash and near-collapse of tourism, hospitality and other key industries left many treasurers wondering how they’d pay the bills.
Yet at the same time, California’s unemployment rate is the lowest in state history. And the number of jobs in high-income sectors has grown by 25,000 from its pre-pandemic level.