Teen vaccination rates lag in most Massachusetts towns hit hardest by coronavirus: report
Sentinel & Enterprise, November 29, 2021
"A data visualization created in partnership with Boston Indicators revealed inequities in COVID-19 vaccination rates among 12- to 19-year-olds living in different cities and towns."
COVID Vaccination Rates Among Young People Lag Behind in Some Mass. Communities
NBC 10 Boston, November 23, 2021
"The coalition published the [Boston Indicators] data to show that communities that are most vulnerable tend to have lower vaccination rates. Places like Swampscott and Sudbury have more than 95% of teenagers vaccinated."
Multiracial population growing in Greater Boston, report says
Dorchester Reporter, November 18, 2021
"The report, called Multiracial in Greater Boston: The Leading Edge of Demographic Change, focuses on how Boston’s demographics are growing increasingly diverse. In the city, this is evident in the elections of some of Boston’s leaders, including Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins who is half white and Black."
Buoyed by early results, Boston and Worcester push to extend free public transit
WBUR, November 18, 2021
"In October, Boston Indicators reported that the WRTA’s bus service had reached more than 90% of its pre-pandemic ridership. The research group said the recovery was likely due to the fare suspension."
The drop in Boston’s Black population may be an illusion
Boston Globe, November 17, 2021
"(A) close look at the data suggests that we may have gotten the numbers undergirding this story wrong — that Boston’s Black population may, in fact, have grown over the last decade."
New study shows significant growth in multi-racial families in Greater Boston area
WGBH Greater Boston, November 17, 2021
"Lee Pelton joins Jim Braude to discuss his organization’s latest report on the changing demographics of the Boston area, which looks specifically at the increase in the number of local individuals who are multi-racial or multi-ethnic."
Greater Boston’s multiracial population more than doubles in last two decades, new report finds
WGBH, November 16, 2021
"The report from Boston Indicators, the research center at the Boston Foundation, found that the region’s multiracial population grew from around 111,000 to almost 250,000."
Boston doesn’t look like it did 20 years ago. Neither does its mayor.
Vox, November 3, 2021
"'If it weren’t for new immigrants to the city, we wouldn’t have seen anywhere near the population rebound we’ve seen in the last 30 years,' said Luc Schuster, a senior director of Boston Indicators. Between 2010 and 2020, the city is estimated to have grown more than 9 percent overall, a reversal of the population declines it experienced in the past."
BU News Service, November 2, 2021
"In 2019... Massachusetts averaged 28.9 opioid-related overdose deaths per 100,000 residents — almost twice the United States’ national count of opioid-related overdose deaths that same year, which was 15.5 per 100,000 residents, per Boston Indicators..."
Fare-free Worcester buses called bright spot in transit recovery
Commonwealth Magazine, October 19, 2021
"One report by the Boston Foundation’s Boston Indicators project documented the current state of transportation in Massachusetts and raised concerns that unless transit systems pick up their games the state may soon be mired in traffic congestion."
New urban thinking: Taking a look at a 15-minute neighborhood
EastBoston.com, October 13, 2021
"Last month, The Boston Foundation and its Boston Indicators unit published their take on the project, '15 Minute Neighborhoods: Repairing Regional Harms and Building Vibrant Neighborhoods for All' in collaboration with the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. The report is a guide on how Massachusetts cities and towns can turn their neighborhoods into 15- minute neighborhoods and identifies the obstacles in the way."
Boston's Race Into History: Improving Public Education
The Scrum, WGBH, October 12, 2021
"Another recent report from the Boston Foundation... [says] Boston's population has increased in recent decades, but the BPS student population has dropped. Families with money tend to leave before their kids hit kindergarten, and Black families that stay often chose charter schools for their kids."
When everything you need is here
Boston Globe, October 8, 2021
"Many [recommendations] shift the focus from parochial control to broader regional standards. “We think the state needs to take more of a role,” said Luc Schuster, the report’s coauthor. “We can’t keep going into these one-off, town-by-town fights” over every zoning change."
New Report Argues For 15-Minute Neighborhoods
WBZ News Radio, October 4, 2021
"The idea is that we ought to be building dense, vibrant, mixed use neighborhoods where people can walk to all the basic necessities of life within a 15 minute walk from their home," Schuster said."
What are 15-minute neighborhoods? New report calls for state action.
Boston.com, October 3, 2021
"It might be surprising to see us focus so much of a neighborhood development paper on state policy, but our view is that we have a wrong level of government problem,” [said] report author Luc Schuster..."
If We Want Everything To Be A 15-Minute Walk From Home, Report Says State Needs To Get Involved
SHNS, WBUR, September 29, 2021
"In a new report, authors with Boston Indicators and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership concluded that a long history of policy choices and hyperlocal decision-making have rendered many neighborhoods segregated, unaffordable and car-centric. Achieving a solution, they said, will require a greater state government focus on zoning, housing development and other fabric-of-life issues."
Opioid Crisis Worsening for Black, Latinx Communities
BNN, September 22, 2021
"Peter Ciurczak... talks about the recent disproportionate increase in opioid-related fatalities in the state's Black and Latinx populations."
Boston Globe, September 18, 2021
"Immigrant women with limited English skills and no higher education who worked in food service and accommodation suffered more job losses during the pandemic than any other group in Massachusetts, according to a report released in March by the Workforce Solutions Group, a statewide advocacy coalition."
WGBH, September 16, 2021
"Trevor Mattos, an economist at Boston Indicators research center, said the latest report from the state reveals a major gap between the number of Black and Latino entrepreneurs in the state available to do work and the number actually doing business with the state."
Trevor Mattos Shows How Massachusetts Runs on Immigrants
Jobmakers Podcast, August 26, 2021
“Trevor Mattos joins the JobMakers podcast to discuss how immigrants are essential to the Massachusetts economy and that: '1 in 6 Massachusetts residents is an immigrant... [they are] critical to making our economy function.”
Boston Globe, August 19, 2021
“'A lot of what’s happening is new immigrants coming from Asian and Latin American countries are helping revitalize our region and state,' said Luc Schuster, director of Boston Indicators, a research project for the Boston Foundation. 'We really would see a contracting local economy if we hadn’t continued to be welcoming to new immigrant communities.'”
A Closer Look at Gaps in Vaccination Rates
BNN News, August 18, 2021
"Anne Calef, Research Fellow with the Boston Indicators Project, discusses a new report on gaps in Massachusetts vaccination rates, how they correlate with disparities in COVID-19 infection rates, and what they suggest about how the differences might be reduced."
Boston Globe, August 14, 2021
"The new census data show that as the Black population in Boston declines, numbers of Black families are increasing in other parts of Greater Boston, where housing costs are less expensive, Schuster added. In cities and towns around Boston, the Black population is up 13 percent while the white population is down about 4 percent."
Report: Vax rates lower among Trump-supporting communities
State House News Service, August 12, 2021
"Massachusetts towns... where former President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign fared better in 2020, tend to have lower vaccination rates, according to a new Boston Indicators report."
In governor’s race, Democrats need an anti-poverty agenda
Boston Globe, August 2, 2021
"Among the 50 states, Massachusetts has seen the sharpest rise in family homelessness since 2007. It also has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the country, declining economic mobility, and a criminal justice system that not only disproportionately locks up Black and Latino residents but also hands them longer sentences, on average, than their white peers."
Report Looks at Latinx COVID-19 Impact, New Remedy
BNN News, June 17, 2021
"Trevor Mattos [Boston Indicators] and Bansari Kamdar [Gaston Institute] discuss report detailing disparate impact of COVID-19 on the Latinx community, and such an impact could be mitigated by a form of guaranteed income payments."
Boston Globe, June 6, 2021
"The poverty rate among Asian American households in Boston is higher than in Black households and nearly three times higher than in white households."
Report: Racial wealth gap, discrimination block minority businesses from financing
Bay State Banner, May 26, 2021
"'The racial wealth gap plays a critical role in determining which firms get started and which ones succeed,' noted Trevor Mattos, research manager at the Indicators Project, the Boston Foundation’s research arm."
El Mundo, May 20, 2021
"Una estrategia prometedora para fomentar seguridad económica es darles a las familias asistencia directa en efectivo y proveer un ingreso mínimo garantizado en Massachusetts. "
Report: Entrepreneurs Of Color Faced A Huge Funding Gap Before COVID. It May Be Worse Now
WBUR, May 20, 2021
"Entrepreneurs of color are less likely to get the funds they need to grow their businesses than white entrepreneurs in Massachusetts....this capital gap has likely gotten worse during the pandemic, according to a new report out Thursday from the Boston Indicators."
Boston Globe, May 20, 2021
"The Asian American poverty rate in Boston is about 29 percent — a few percentage points higher than Black households and nearly three times higher than white households, according to Boston Indicators."
Black Economic Council of Mass. makes forming a public bank a top legislative priority
Boston Globe, May 19, 2021
"The state-owned bank proposal is receiving a second push this week, from the influential Boston Foundation, which... release[d] a report on Thursday highlighting the disparities in access to credit between white-owned small businesses and those owned by people of color."
A solution for hunger takes shape in Chelsea and Cambridge
Boston Globe, May 17, 2021
"Boston Indicators, the research arm of the Boston Foundation, estimated last summer that a modest but large-scale guaranteed minimum income program for Massachusetts would cost roughly $1 billion dollars. Boston Indicators’ researchers proposed doing it by overhauling and expanding the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit."
Why a guaranteed minimum income makes sense for the state’s hardest hit communities
Boston Globe, May 12, 2021
"By overhauling the state EITC, Massachusetts could provide all households earning up to $70,000 annually a cash credit of at least $1,200 a year."
Map Shows Changing Influx of Immigrants
BNN News, May 7, 2021
"Peter Ciurczak, Senior Research Associate for the Boston Indicators Project at The Boston Foundation, explains a new interactive map showing the changing mix of immigrants coming to Massachusetts over the past forty years."
How Diverse Is Boston, Really? More Than You See on the Screen
NBC Boston, April 30, 2021
"This trend toward more diversity among its residents is shaping the city’s future, said Luc Schuster, director of Boston Foundation research center Boston Indicators."
Getting the details right on transit oriented development law
Commonwealth Magazine, April 21, 2021
"The new law is a great opportunity to address our region’s housing crisis, but critical details remain to be worked out through a complex rule-making process"
Telecommuting will make Boston share the wealth
Boston Globe, April 15, 2021
"If managed correctly, Schuster notes, the evolution of a polycentric region could do much to address the yawning inequality that has beleaguered Boston, where a red-hot housing market has squeezed the middle class."
The lessons of a Chelsea family’s COVID-19 ordeal
Boston Globe, April 12, 2021
"The reasons why the virus found the perfect mark in Chelsea have been explored: The tiny city has the highest rate of overcrowded housing in the state, a large share of front-line workers, and high rates of asthma."
A key to a better Boston, hiding in plain sight
Boston Globe, April 9, 2021
"Want a cleaner, more prosperous, more equitable region? Upgrading commuter rail would unlock all those benefits."
By the numbers: A year in ‘fiscal freefall’ for Massachusetts arts and culture
Boston Globe, March 12, 2021
"The majority of organizations included in a [December] Boston Indicators report have faced a reduction in philanthropic giving and limited cash reserves."
Is Boston losing its mojo? Experts say renters are growing open to, but may not be ready, to leave
Boston Globe, January 13, 2021
"(Allowing modest, middle-class-friendly housing construction is) something we should have been doing all along to stay competitive with other metro areas, Schuster said. 'It’s tough because a lot of these measures of housing costs only look at people who are actually living in a place, so you never capture the people who just never moved here at all because it was too expensive to even consider it'"
Using 211 Data to Measure Real-Time Community Need during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Urban Institute, January 6, 2021
"Boston Indicators includes analysis of 211 calls in Massachusetts as part of their COVID Community Data Lab to help community groups, researchers, and government agencies understand the pandemic’s effects on area residents."
Housing Choice Passes Legislature in Early-Morning Vote
Banker & Tradesman, January 6, 2021
"More recently, Brookings Institution scholar Jenny Schuetz and Boston Indicators researcher Luc Schuster calculated [in Zoned Out: Why Massachusetts Needs to Legalize Apartments Near Transit] that a 15 units-per-acre mandate would make it possible to build units affordable to middle- and many working-class Bay Staters even in wealthy communities like Wellesley while keeping buildings relatively modest in scale."
In The News items from 2018 through 2020 have been archived and are available here.