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Please use New York states Flag not the city flag they are two different things and it is offensive to everyone else in the state to represent us as a whole with the city flag!
One thing that wasn't mentioned, although adjacent to its academics, is that Boston is considered the best medical center in America, which brings in a massive amount of money even from outside the state.
Considering all the research Harvard Medical College does and all the chemistry needed for a pre-med degree, I wouldn't say it's only adjacent to academics. I will say it's applied academics and clinical work. And yeah, all those Harvard Med students needing experience as well as all those interns and residents really do have a local effect.
An important thing missing is that Massachusetts has been rated to have the best PUBLIC primary education in the country. It isn’t just secondary education, and it isn’t only private institutions.
It's really not that great. Speaking as a mass student in the last 15 years. It's better than the rest of the USA, sure, but still poor compared to international standards.
Being born in Massachusetts definitely led to a better life for me. I enlisted in the military right out of high school. While serving, Massachusetts established a veteran benefit that gave me four years of free tuition in any state college. That got me a free BSEE from UMASS Lowell and I went on to work for companies like Raytheon, Digital Equipment Corp, Sun Microsystems - all in Massachusetts.
I can go in depth about the second world war or the nuances of electoral politics with my landscaper. In Florida I could barely do that with the people in their senior year of college.
@@br6282 You are correct, not everyone needs to or should go to college. But college is not the only way that someone can be well educated and informed. When I mentioned the plumber being able to discuss economics, it isn't because he went to college, it's because from time to time he reads books and intelligent magazines. He watches intelligent programing and is engaged with current events and the world instead of just playing on his phone on all day. Massachusetts is a highly educated state with the best public school system of the 50 sates. Having lived in and traveled to other parts of the country, the difference is noticeable. In general, I have found that most people here are much better informed and engaged than people from other parts of the country.
@@br6282 agree with the guy above me. Neither did my landscaper go to college, we just have a culture of intellectual curiosity that percolates all lines of work
As a lifelong Massachusite, we have our challenges, but they are more than made up for by the advantages of living here. That said, the state has struggled to cope with the influx of new high skilled workers to the Boston metro area. Part of the reason is that as the state has become more upper-income, the regulations in the state have become much more strict in terms of building and employment, which (while nice on paper) can make it quite difficult to find lower-income jobs or afford to build lower-income housing. This is because the amount of oversight the state takes over employment and construction basically puts a floor on how expensive it is to employ someone or build something. My mother recently finished building her own house, and the process to get the new environmental codes authorized was over a year, and this was before she could even begin planning the construction. All together, the cost of complying with these regulations likely inflated the building of her house by around $100k. It is difficult to see how one can afford to build low-cost, low-income housing in an environment that is so relatively hostile to construction. And likewise, it can be difficult for employers to comply with Massachusetts strict employment regulations, which leads to more automation and less employment. I don't necessarily think that automation is bad, but it does reduce the opportunities for low-income residents. Having been a low-income resident at one time, I understand how hard it can be to find employment in the state without a technical background. More and more, Massachusetts feels a bit like a large high-income suburb with a statehouse. In which the needs of lower-income residents are accounted for primarily through rhetoric, and temporary assistance, but not through a meaningful reform of the way the state approaches low-income needs. Which makes sense, as the majority of voters in Massachusetts are relatively wealthy, suburban, educated households who have a particular set of interests. They want green housing, they don't want high-density low-income housing. They want 'living wages' but they don't much care if you can't find a job at all. All of that said, Massachusetts has been quite good to me for my whole life. The sheer amount of dynamic, thoughtful, and world-class people you find here can't be met anywhere else. Our greatest resource are our people, as the video said. And the state has done an excellent job in fostering a well-educated, high-skilled, and high-productivity population. In my opinion, that makes Massachusetts one of the best places in the world to live, if only so you can benefit by being in close proximity to these remarkable people. I just wish the state took a more pragmatic look at its own policies and realized how those policies can actually lead to more poverty, while claiming that they do the opposite.
Good points. I'm having to re-evaluate some of my own views when considering jobs, housing and the environment. I think it's easy to care about being green when you have spare income, but when you're struggling to get by, other more pressing issues take priority.
@@FreQ135 I agree. My mom is actually a designer who worked on low-income housing that was "green" (energy efficient, waste water recycling, passive solar heating etc..). She was a proponent for more energy efficient codes, but she has found that the current requirements go beyond what is reasonable. She thinks that the benefit of energy efficiency is that, while more expensive upfront, it saves the homeowner money in the long run. However, some of the most recent codes have added a lot of bloated, buzzword friendly, requirements to new builds that add up quickly. Things like building all structures pre-wired for solar panels (even if the house is permenantly shaded). Or wiring buildings with pre-placed electric car charging ports (even if the owner doesn't own or plan to own an electric car). What it ends up meaning is that new-builds are required to purchase a lot of expensive electric infrastructure that is mostly unused for a hypothetical use-case that may never occur. There is a smart way to do green building that isn't that expensive, like mandating more insulation on roofs and windows. But requiring everyone to install twice as much electrical wiring and capacity than they require seems wasteful, and inflationary on housing prices. Not to mention that it likely does less to actually reduce energy costs than just better insulation codes.
@@DeviousDumplin I'd have thought designing houses in certain ways that logistically allows easy/cheap installation of wiring if the resident needs it. Whilst also creating agreed packs/prices for local companies to do that work, raising with inflation each year. Eg. Make it easy and cheap for residents to add those features if they want them, but don't force it into every building. The higher priority is controling house price growth, to enable young people to afford housing so they can pair up and have kids at a younger age. If everyone is waiting until their 40's, we'll see the birth rate continue to decline, which brings it's own economic problems.
for personal reasons my daughter needs to go to boston every 3 months since there’s only 2 specialists in the united states and since were in rhode island it’s been most helpful. i agree entirely
Boston hospitals have had some... difficulties in recent years but they definitely have the tools and the machines. I had to move away to get better healthcare.
Speaking as someone born and raised in Massachusetts, it’s a great state, where big ideas are the go-to topic of conversation, but you really can’t overstate the challenge around housing affordability. Massachusetts, like California and New York, will buckle under the weight of its own success if we’re not careful. Leaders in the Commonwealth (Massachusetts technically calls itself a Commonwealth, not a state) need to understand that the economy is a larger system and in order for the MIT people to do their smart, highly-value added stuff, we need to have enough housing for schoolteachers, firefighters, and janitors to be able to afford to live here
Yeah. Tough one to tackle unfortunately, it’s an inherent symptom of our asset economy. Wealthy people own high value properties that only continue to rise in value, continuous expansion of residential zones is not sustainable as long as zoning laws favor single family units disproportionately, etc etc. A lot has to change
Born, raised, and educated here in MA. I became a teacher, taught for 25 years. Now, I still work in education in Ed tech and instructional design. MA was the first state to enact major Ed reform in the 90s, way ahead of NCLB, Common Core, etc. The state has always had high standards for teachers and better salaries (relatively-speaking). While the education pressures and teacher shortages other states are feeling are also represented here, there is a collective understanding that teachers and schools are important.
Teacher salaries higher in Connecticut. That is why many Western Massachusetts teachers opt for better paying positions in Connecticut .Western Massachusetts is largely forgotten in videos extolling the virtues of living Massachusetts . The video ignored the very high living costs in Massachusetts . The Commonwealth has many great features, but our living costs have caused many residents to put Massachusetts in the rear view mirror.
@joelaino3793 I agree... I'm a massachusetts resident, but am younger. All these comments seem to be coming from people who are 35+. For the tail end millennial and early GenZ, MA is tremendously terrible place to start a life. The affordability of everything... housing, food, transportation, energy is through the charts. It's always been Taxachusetts, and I appreciate all that we get from that. But as a young adult, I fear I'll never be able to have a family or own a home if I stay here. Not unless I get financial assistance from family. And that just sucks...
I did my postdoc at MIT 2015-2017. I remember my first day, walking just off campus and seeing all the buildings filled with late stage startups and other bigger spinoffs that clearly came out of MIT, and it was extremely obvious the value that a juggernaut elite 'brainpower centre' can bring economically. You could even visibly see people walking across the street going between buildings on campus and the surrounding business centers its graduates built, demonstrating the crosstalk and mutual reliance on this critical mass of resources each had. It also spurred patent law firms and venture capital, bringing more expertise and money to the area and local economy. Very important lesson other regions should adopt, although creating your own MIT or Harvard would be unrealistic to recreate since they're in a different universe.
Israel made their own MIT and Harvard, but as an Israeli who lives in MA, I can tell that as far off as anywhere in the US is, this is the most comfortable I've been in the world outside of Israel, and these two things are not accidents.
@ yes, in the lab I worked in I had an Israeli colleague and we became good friends and he told me about the investments your country was making in technical academia. Agree as well that it’s a very welcoming culture regardless of where in the world you’re from. I say that as a Canadian who went down to MIT.
I grew up in New Hampshire and went to high school in Massachusetts, since then I've moved all over the country chasing a better life as a laborer. There is nowhere better, this is the best state to succeed in if you want to work your way up from the bottom, and I can tell you exactly why: Because we foster our own who then make sure to give back to the local economy. We have cohesion and unity, a commonwealth for the common good. Learn from us, America.
Proud to be a part of Massachusetts. Lots of smart and hardworking people. Also, the MBTA finally has a leader that knows what to do, and they’ve been putting in so much work to fix the system. We still have a ways to go, but I’m proud to see people putting in the work to fix our issues!
I lived here all my life and it sucks, everything is so drastically expensive that if you aren’t part of the upper class you’re fucked not everything is as it’s cracked up to be people here are extremely judgmental and cold to outsiders
@@Spazticmonkey1000We hear you. Failures in life will always find Massachusetts a very hard state to live in. Lots of other failures like yourself have the same inferiority complex.
@@Spazticmonkey1000 That describes Boston, but things are different outside the city. We don't usually know or care what religion our neighbors have, if any, and mind our own business about what they do in their bedrooms and what they read [as long as it doesn't disturb others]. Compare that to states where they try to force their religion on you, tell you what you can and can't read, watch, do, marry etc. You call it cold? I call it Yankee civility. You are right about one thing, it's super expensive to live here, compared to Alabama and 3/4 of the other states. The cost of an apartment can be directly tied to how close to Downtown Crossing it is and how close to a T bus, subway or train stop.
I like it here in Massachusetts. I would also like to mention for another reason I have found people moving out, though this is definitely not reliable data as this is just talking with people (usually pretty old people too) which is the weather. A lot of people hate it being cold in Massachusetts, personally I prefer it over worrying a lot about big fires, hurricanes, or Typhoons, but I just think it’s an interesting thing to note that doesn’t really fit in a video like this
The cold is annoying, but honestly it getting dark at 4PM in the winter is the real issue. MA and New England should be on it's own time zone, separate from NY.
It's not even that cold in mass. It'll get down to single digits for a week then climb back up to the mid 20's or 30's. Up in Maine it'll go down to -20 (with wind chill) for a week then stay at 10 degrees for another
This is a great comment. I noticed that climate got minimal attention, but there are lots of other sites that focus more on climate and recreation. Some of my international students thought that Boston Common was huge, and were surprised when I told them they could get to Blue Hills Reservation by bus. A couple of them nearly got lost and spent hours there. Some were freaked out that they might see wild animals so close to a major city!
@@nickna7387 That's like Albany, NY. I remember a couple of weeks with minus 40 and a high wind down the valley. But for snow try Syracuse, or worse, Buffalo!
The Boston- New York- D.C corridor, representing global level power in Knowledge- Finance- Government, is definitively the most powerful urban agglomeration extant today.
It is also an enormous target of misplaced envy by people who view the disparities in wealth between that corridor and wherever they live through a prism of cultural grievance.
President caveman chest thumper will change that. This successful blue state megaregions is an awkward reminder of the empty failure of red states with their overreliance on being America's cheap labor states and little else.
Been living in MA (Boston suburbs) for 14 years & before that outside of NYC. Completely agree that this state has the smartest people. I have made many international friends over the years who went here for school, further diversifying the psyche of the state. The state is beautiful, from Western Massachusetts to Cape Cod. Very safe, limited homeless people, nice variety with seasons changing. November -> March can be rough with the cold & lack of sun. The cost of living is significantly higher than most places in the US and housing costs are comparable with NYC, LA, & SF. Compared to the rest of my family in NJ I notice most services cost 30% more and food/restaurants in the suburbs are comparable to NYC prices. Overall MA is a great state, not without its flaws, but for those who can afford it, it doesn’t get much better on the East Coast USA.
Really? Because as a MA resident in the same exact area for 22 years who scored 99% average on every test i took in school, and literally had to be told by my college professor not to raise my hands so other people had a chance to answer, Mass is full of TONS of RICH ENTITLED IDIOTS that THINK they're smart because they have an Ego about being in massachusettes. Our roads suck, our healthcare sucks. Our mental health system is practically non existant and the only reason people THINK boston is smarter is because we have about 6 colleges. So really the smart people are coming here, going to school, and leaving. The REAL boston residents are usually arrogant entitled rich pricks.
As someone who has had the displeasure of being a disabled homeless in MA, we're very much here, and we very much suffer. I was given $144/month for food and as a cancer patient with very specific nutritional needs, that lasted me about a week and a half. Thank God for other charities and friends. The waiting list to have your application looked at for housing as a single male is 8 years; that is not 8 years to get housing; that is 8 years to be told if you qualify for low-income housing. All that being said, if you can survive the late fall, winter, and early spring, you're better off homeless here than homed and poor almost anywhere else. I would be dead if it wasn't for DFCI.
The four seasons are great. The Cape, the ocean, sports, universities, health care, technology, education, social justice, and the proximity to New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine. Western Mass is lovely as well!
My mother’s side of the family is from Massachusetts. I partly grew up here. Went to college here & left at 20 years old for Florida. I spent 27 years in Florida & moved back to Massachusetts this past summer. The two states are night & day, with Florida being “night” & Massachusetts being “day”. Massachusetts is a highly enlightened state with a highly educated populace. Florida has a largely ignorant populace….and proud of it too. Massachusetts invests in its citizens. Florida does very little investing in its people. It shows in the horrible educational system, poor state healthcare & transportation system. Like I said, night & day.
@ so very well said !! I’ve wasted 28 years in Florida and can’t wait to put Florida in my rear view mirror. I’m heading for the Berkshires as soon as the right house shows up. Dreaming of a garden and people who care about nature and animals. My neighbors in Florida want to go to Africa some day so they can kill an elephant like Don Jr promotes as being a real man. I wish I could get the years back I’ve spent here. Thanks for putting it in perfect words
Fla is a giant strip mall with beaches many locals never even go to but at least Desantis bans books. I don’t trust a state that can’t figure out a bottle recycling plan
@@protectanimals9792You also don’t have to worry about some lunatic killing you in the highways in Massachusetts. It happens but not nearly as much as Fla
The video didn't have time to get into it, but outside of Boston MA is full of beautiful towns and countrysides. My home state, NH, benefits as well: companies move out of MA into NH for the tax benefits, bringing their well-educated workforce with them.
Yes all the New England states have something to offer. VT NH ME are the places we go in mass to vacation. Sure they come for Cape, but we load up vehicles with dirt bikes, canoes, skis, boards, and all the rest and EXPLORE. I love Massachusetts, but to live and work in any of those states would be a dream. There was a guy who used to commute from Conn to Boston everyday. A friend of mine Boston to Providence RI as a commute. Once you are into NH - they maintain the highways like no other state I’ve seen. And commute around simple. The region isn’t big, 3 hours I’m skiing on a big mountain. I’ve done the NYC drive, it’s not bad. The bigger NH towns are just over the border of Mass. If you are out of state looking for a job I wouldn’t let “southern NH” dissuade you. Maybe I can find a company that will relocate itself and me there.
You’re not wrong but CT is slightly different than NJ. The Hartford economic area is separate from Fairfield County, yet is independently has one of the highest per capita GDP outputs of any area in the country (it was actually higher than Boston and SV less than 10 years ago). So CT generally has strength in its own right where NJ is either NYC or Philly centered.
An unfortunate consequence of success. States like Massachusets need to increase their funding for building housing and making sure they are publicly available. The more wealth and economic activity the state generates , the higher cost of living will become. Wages need to grow to reflect this and public efforts need to be made to both encourage that wage growth(e.g. unionization), and keep prices under control in the mean time. A community, no matter how wealthy, cannot survive without the workers needed to maintain its various profitable systems. Those workers need to earn enough money to live comfortably, anything less is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope that MA doesn't fall into that wealth trap like so many other places.
Unfortunately every state is being hurt by the gd nimbies big banks and other corrupt rigging the housing "market" with draconian "zoning" and other schemes .. Unfortunately the gd "trickle down" mafia mentality is everywhere
I’m in a graduate program at MIT where I fly in for class, so I get to regularly and repeatedly “feel” the difference between Massachusetts and the rest of the states. It’s kind of hard to put into words the type of energy you feel when every person you talk to either has already had a monumental impact or is on the path to have one in the near future.
Remember you got it too bro. We are just a lot of traumatized Irish people with some traumatized Italian people and a couple other traumatized groups that all teamed up to get ourselves something we needed to protect ourselves with. Money. Go get that bag king and bring up our world :)
And that’s why people like you get so out of touch with average people Yet you’re supposed to be our leaders…at least that’s what you believe you’re entitled to be
Here is one critical part I think you missed out is that Harvard,MIT and other Universities in the State teaches Entrepreneurship as part of getting at their prestigious Degree.Their Endowment fund are which comes from their Alumini eclipsed the Tuition Fees.Their Alumini are the ones who owned the large billion dollar Global Companies who go back and literally funds many Students ideas literally from a Napkin .These Start ups are what creates New impactful Businesses and it continues.That is the real reason.
I highly recommend reading Ebony and Ivy by MIT Professor Dr. Craig Steven Wilder. The endowment of Ivy Leagues cannot be separated from the history of the schools as pathways for educating the children of rich, Southern plantation owners who exploited generations of people.
The Wentworth and NJATC collaboration was exciting. I gave ten years of my life and more trying to qualify. I got to install the lighting on the MiT dome ^.0
First, thanks for the compliment but you've missed several key points - - MA, for the almost 70 years I’ve lived here, has had very uneven growth. In fact, up until the 1970s, one might say that MA was a laggard in the 20th century. Arguably, MA’s economy probably peaked during the WWII era until its revitalization began with the computer tech boom of the 1980s. - Your adulation for Harvard and MIT is overdone and ignores the dozens of other colleges and universities in the Commonwealth (we aren’t a “State”), especially its public 4 year and community colleges. You also don’t mention the very high levels of investment in our public schools which have MA typically at the very top based on standardized testing. - Your video entirely dwells on the city of Boston. Much of the rest of the Commonwealth is far, far less wealthy though arguably more scenic. - While you seem to be enamored with robots, Boston Dynamics is a minuscule contributor to the MA economy. You don’t mention the biotech industry which is easily the fastest contributor to our economy. While not a large employer by numbers, the capital it attracts and the wealth it generates is enormous. MA hosts the world’s largest share of the bio-tech industry. - The other major industry you’ve ignored is health. Boston is home to many of the finest hospitals in the world, staffed by tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other professionals. People from around the US, and around the world, come here to restore their health. We were the first in the nation to ensure that health care was available to all its citizens. - MA is also a tourist magnet. Visitors come here for the history, for our Cape Cod beaches, for our many museums and other cultural institutions such as the BSO and Tanglewood. And of course we host lots of professional sports teams, even if no one outside of New England likes them. Not a mention of any of this at all in your video. - Why do people leave MA? Mainly because it is very expensive to live here, especially in the Boston area. Heating costs are high because of our cold winters. Housing is expensive because of our lack of available land, our restrictive zoning laws and high labor costs. Our transportation infrastructure (Big Dig aside) is aging badly and we’ve not invested in public transportation on anything like the scale that is needed. Our roads are ill-maintained and horribly crowded. - Oh, and we have just about the strictest gun laws in the country so we are far safer than most anywhere else in the US.
MA got one thing wrong though. CA banned employee non compete agreements in the 1930s. This might be the reason Silicon Valley is in CA, when by all rights it should have been centered on MIT. Si valley is a multi trillion dollar economy, because experienced people are free to switch jobs and join startups, and startups can hire experienced workers to pursue high value opportunities. Perhaps Harvard's corporate focus killed Route 128. We almost got a non compete ban nationally, but the courts blocked it, and Lina Kahn is out, oh well.
Agreements like that are why we have supermonopolies controling us now. it's supposed to be a FREE AND FAIR market. We're no longer under capitalism we've returned to fedualism, they just pretend its a democracy instead of being open about the Oligarchy
I moved here from Florida and life is more than 100% better. The problem that people have in Mass is that they are so used to the baseline being so high that they can’t appreciate what they have. Everything is better than “here”, without realizing that the reason that COL is so high is precisely BECAUSE people want to live there. Yes, Mass does need to improve its zoning and regulation and build more housing, but the amazing infrastructure, opportunity, and intelligence of everyone is precisely why people choose to stay and contribute to the local GDP. People here are also intelligent enough to talk about its flaws (compare to places in the South that are worse and everyone things they’re like heaven, Jacksonville) It’s this weird circular chain of reasoning that is really unique to Mass and Bostonians. Anyways, I absolutely love Mass and people don’t realize what they have because they’re always comparing to a hypothetical perfect place that doesn’t exist.
I remember growing up a lot of kids would complain about our town being "boring". But the reality is that "boring" town is actually a very nice suburb with a great school system, low crime, and strong community.
@@YouCanCallMeReTro Like seriously they don’t realize that the opposite of boring is chaos! In central Florida it wasn’t boring it was chaotic. People would die from being ran over everyday, school systems were atrocious (my high school had 4000 people), you didn’t feel safe in some areas, and nobody knew each other nor cared to - everyone for themself. I sometimes laugh at people that say Mass has a lot of crime. While it’s not crime free and it’s plain ignorant to say that, it is leagues ahead other states. Boston had 24 homicides in 2024, 24 too many but still. Meanwhile, a family member in a relatively well-off suburb in Orlando had Monopoly money visible in their car only for their windows to be shattered and the game board to be stolen. Definitely not boring…
Massachusetts should stop catering to drivers by abolishing parking minimums and other zoning reform (like allowing single stair building) to build more housing. If it can become a pedestrian, train, and bike first state, it will grow into the next decade very easily.
I couldn't be happier to call Massachusetts my home. We still have plenty of issues as others have said, but we have so many benefits from a cultural and political standing that it far outweighs the cons imo. Side note, there's a couple of discrepancies on the historical side of things in this video unfortunately, a few have already mentioned the thumbnail issue, but notably Plymouth is not part of Cape Cod. The pilgrims did land on CC originally, but they moved to Plymouth because CC was too sandy to farm
I am cannot tell you how overjoyed I was with the irony of Phoenix University advertising on this video. Only I need to become unaccredited in something
I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently living in a small town 50 miles away raising a family... I honestly can't say much to welcome people here, and totally see why year after year more people move out of this state than move in. I mean, if you want to go to some Ivy league school or get into pharmaceuticals or robotics, then I get that. Unfortunately, we also have one of the highest, if not the highest, income requirements to live here. For a family of four to live comfortably here, you need to make over $300k/year, according to actual reports, I'm not just giving my opinion. Making $150k/yr here has suddenly gotten closer to living paycheck to paycheck, which I would've never imagined 20 years ago. If you're watching this video contemplating the move here, make sure your income can live up to the cost of living here.
The book "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash spends a few chapters on the growth of MIT from a tech school to the institution it is today. Worth the read just for the history lesson.
I recently made some comments about Massachusetts and the US not being well understood by some commenters. Thanks to the research presented here, I recognize that my information seems a bit out of date, or possibly misinterpreted. I stated that MA had an SDI between Norway and Switzerland, but your economic model puts it above both of them. I hadn't realized that MA ranked after California and New York and ahead of Texas [America's Saudi Arabia]. This video didn't address infrastructure deeply. Boston benefited from being closer to Europe than NYC in the Age of Sail, but lost some of that advantage as transportation technology improved. Being at the far end of rail and road networks was something of a disadvantage. Building the Cape Cod Canal was important in lessening the seaborn transport and danger between Boston and NYC, but rail surpassed it in importance. The picture of an abandoned factory left an important data point hanging. Many former factories have been turned into apartments or condominiums, most extremely pricy. You mentioned the integration of universities and corporate entities. I'm not sure if DARPA is widely known to be a source of military innovation, but the information was sufficient for those who are interested in that area to follow. A major innovation that is usually underestimated is the Interstate Highway System. It was intended to be military, and arguably was one of the weapons that brought the USSR down. This system was an economic multiplier, but also distorted the economy and society away from rail and water toward gasoline fed transportation, the truck fleets are now under pressure from potential AI or robot innovation. Thanks for another fascinating and, as usual, data rich video.
Boston's Logan airport has been getting a ton of investment recently because it is the closest major airport in North America to Europe. You don't need widebody planes to fly from Boston to Western Europe, which significantly lowers the cost of transatlantic flying.
@ If true, that's a long overdue relief. However, I was usually forced to fly to Boston via NYC, and several times was forced to endure long layovers at Kennedy and/or transfer to LaGuardia for a shuttle to Boston. Coming in through Newark was even worse!
Massachusetts pads the numbers, as someone from MA you either make 100,000 & can survive here or you make below that & you’re screwed especially if you pay mortgage / rent.
Yeah, it's murder for me trying to get a job in Massachusetts (especially since I live in Western MA and can't drive) but at least stuff like MassHealth's been able to keep me afloat for the moment
As a Bostonian I can say that this state is great and all but the cost of living here is ridiculous and it’s only getting worse even as someone who’s considered high income on a national level I’m barely getting by here and I can never dream of getting my own house unless I double my income.
If they build the East West rail from Boston to the western parts of the state. The housing is less expensive there than Boston area. That would help with the housing prices.
i know everyone loves their home state, but Massachusetts is truly the best place to live in this crazy country. i will always be so proud of where im from!
I’ve lived in my Massachusetts all 23 years of my life. I love the geography, the culture, the cuisine, the sports, even the winters here. I will never not call it my home. But once I learned about real estate in this state vs others, oh boy. I was amazed to see a shack of a house a couple towns outside of Boston is quadruple the value of a nice lakeside home in Maine, double the price of a typical one-family home in CT or RI etc. I understand it’s location location location, but I don’t find any way I can continue to live here unless I win the lottery. A two-room shed ADU is enough to jack a property an extra $500,000. A lot of native Mass people are moving away while a lot of already well-to-do out-of-staters are moving in. Not sure if this might cause an issue pretty soon but it’s definitely hard to watch from my POV
I was fortunate to move to Massachusetts at the age of 23 when it was still affordable. It's been a wonderful place to live and work all these years, but it's way too expensive now. I'll retire in my home state of Pennsylvania when the time comes. Real estate is literally half of what it costs in Massachusetts, and you get more land.
Lived in Mass for about 4 years (not college). It was a great place for jobs, medical, education and culture. But the Winters and housing prices were absolutely insane. Even outside of Boston. Ended up moving because even at a high salary it felt impossible to buy a decent house without generational wealth being handed down.
I am trying to move out, and I have to stay in MA. Even in the crappiest parts of the state, outside the Westernmost edge, good luck finding a small apartment to rent for less than $2,000. In order to find a place to live that isn't in the closest thing we have to a ghetto I have had to accept I'll be paying $2,500/month give or a take $200 for as little as 750sqft to rent when my parents have a 4000sqft house and their mortgage is $2,200/month (in MA).
What is interesting, and concerning, is that many Americans mock Massachusetts. It is looked upon as too "liberal" (left wing) and is known as Taxachusetts (although is anyone really surprised that higher taxes co-exist with a higher standard of living?). It is the state that values education highest and reaps the rewards. I think the derision says something about the critics. Great video.
I don't even know why we're called Taxachusetts. I'm pretty sure we had the 21st highest taxes, so were roughly in the middle of the pack.
11 วันที่ผ่านมา +3
It doesn't value education the highest. A lot of smart people live there or move there and so they have strong educational outcomes. If you brought in a bunch of dumb people, there would be bad educational outcomes. And California has extremely high taxes, and the "higher standard of living" this results in is having to avoid crazy homeless people and used needles on the street each day
Massachusetts has a lot of established smart people, but because they don't build anything, are regulated to death, and have insanely high taxes, it has lead to high rates of out-migration, especially young people with degrees. Massachusetts, as far as population is concerned, is really only being propped up by high rates of in-migration, particularly high-skilled legal immigration such as H1Bs. It has some of the highest rates of native brain drain in the US outside of New York and California.
Massachusetts actually has rather low taxes. Lower than many republican states. Property tax, income tax and corporate tax are all pretty much in the middle of the US. Massachusetts affords its social programs because there's just a ton of money in the state. So the rate doesn't need to be that high to afford the programs. I also laugh a bit when Massachusetts is criticized as being excessively liberal. I have lived here my entire life, and most people are liberal, but they aren't all that far left. Most people are moderate democrats who look at stuff on the west coast or NY and think it's all bit excessive. It's also more common to find voters who will vote for moderate republicans and vice versa. Charlie Baker was our last republican governor, and he had the highest approval ratings of any Governor at the time. Something like 80%. That isn't to say the state is centrist, but there's less stigma about crossing the aisle to vote for a moderate of the other party.
Im surprised you didn't mention the dominance of biotech and medical device industries. These are arguably the most dominant industries in Massachusetts, and provide a solid foundation to the economy that makes it easier for it to weather the storms of sociopolitical and economic crises. Not to mention, give all the intelligent Massholes out there a place to go when their jobs in high tech venture capitalist companies disappear during economic storms.
I grew up in a completely average Mass town in an undesirable part of the state, where the expectation was that every student upon high school graduation would attend a private liberal arts college. I had no idea this wasn’t common until later.
@@chichan8424 Hey we love the green line. Yeah, the breaks squeak like crazy, the trams go out of order all the time, and it gets stuck in traffic. All that's made up for by the fact that you ride for free at street level. Source: I rode the Green Line today
I was born and have lived in Massachusetts all my life. As here we made history by being the first to do many things. Especially in the area of civil rights
Canadian person here, my father and a lot of his side of my family is from Massachusetts. I’ve seen the Commonwealth before and it is an absolutely beautiful state and I thank the father God for giving me a dad like the one I have. I love Massachusetts and when I get older I will be very interested on moving over there. I think all states of the USA are equally good in their own rights but I personally would move to MA because I biologically am connected to it. God Bless you to the folks reading this!! ❤
I'm so proud to be from Massachusetts. Especially regarding education. I went to public school here and then taught college in Florida and let me tell you, college freshmen in Florida would not have passed my 10th grade high school classes in Massachusetts
You also forgot one MIT startup that might well be the most valuable company on earth in 15 years if their tech works as advertised. Commonwealth Fusion Systems is currently building a demonstrator fusion power plant in Devens, Massachusetts and has already unveiled plans for their first grid-scale plant in Chesterfield, Virginia.
You didn’t mention the natural beauty that can be found in the Western part of the state or our world class museums, symphonies & historical sites. Western MA, with our 5 Colleges system & healthy lifestyles is the place to be in this Commonwealth!
@@willburke6361 thank you for the note! Yes, it seems like over recent years, particularly, since 2015 it's been quite "biotechie"! If I ride the subway, I see lots of people I'd not imagine to be "townies"!
@@eddiesalinas I grew up in kind of a classic american town. Most people I know who grew up there their families moved out in the last 10 years and some real estate company knocks down their tasteful home and builds an ugly mcmansion on top of it. Its very expensive to live there now as property values and thus taxes soared. Influx of high-income people and real estate developers pricing out the middle class. Even those who can afford it many choose to move as their kids have graduated and they opt to go down south or find a cheaper place somewhere else in the region. The town was already upper-middle class to begin with, but it fully drifted into a rich town.
The best thing about this too is we have may be the richest state but the roads, infrastructure, schools. Everything is going down the gutter and we supposedly have ALL this money but nothing gets fixed or if it does it takes years. Im starting to believe this state has some serious corruption.
I was one of those people who went to Boston for college, Boston University, and agree that it is a state full of very smart people. The cultural, educational, healthcare and employment possibilities almost seemed endless. The quality of professors and the opportunities to collaborate with other universities and the private sector were unmatched. I agree with the expense of living there being a downside, but there is one other thing. The weather in winter! December, January and February can be pretty brutal with the cold, snow and gray cloudiness. The summers are wonderful, but I know many people who left because of the winters. As a personal anecdote, I remember a weekend in late January of my sophomore year when we had so much snow that we could not get out of our dormitory. It was piled up about 10 feet against the building and the doors that opened outward were blocked. On the second day some people were exiting out through the second floor windows to get food only to be greeted by temperatures of 10 degrees F. That gave me some serious second thoughts to staying after graduation.
The winter weather isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, especially if you're in Boston. I remember when I was a kid, we'd get genuine blizzards at least half a dozen times a year. But now, we get a lot of days where its a pretty nice humid 40-50, and we rarely get blizzards anymore. The worst days are when its a dry 20, and there's a shitload of wind from the buildings. Winters before had me question why people live here. Winters now are a pretty good tradeoff for all the other benefits of living here.
You'd love to hear that we don't get much snow anymore. When I moved here in the early 2000s, I went from barely ever seeing snow in my life to a blizzard every year. The first year I moved here, I saw more cumulative snowfall than I did in the past five years here.
I just found another favorite state,I’ve felt so out of place for years and I taught living in a place surrounded by smart people was impossible,I like country life but this might be my favorite city state.
Wow, we rock! The nation should look to us for education particularly the low performing states like Alabama and Tennessee.
11 วันที่ผ่านมา +2
A lot of smart people live in/move to MA. That's why it has good educational outcomes, not because the schools are magically better than the rest of the country. If you took a bunch of poor minorities from Alabama and put them in an MA public classroom, they would likely do hardly any better in school.
yes! I'm super grateful to live here but can be ashamed of my accent at times. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather live here and have a horrible accent than most other places.
Sort of on the side... born, raised and worked most of my life in MA (Boston area), 2-1/2 yrs ago moved to its northern neighbor NH (Manchester, due to wife's new job). From experiences and formal/informal connections in both states, I feel I can say MA absolutely has it's issues and NH has a few pulses... but it kills me how NH's new and old governor (Kelly Ayotte and Sununu respectively) keep hating on MA rather than work with, or learn from, the state (at least openly). They and the (Trump) repubs up here say the usual BS that MA "is a failed Soci-communist state". Effectively the bottom 1/3rd of NH commutes to MA everyday for jobs. Yeah if NH could have as much of a failure. Again MA has big issues to deal with but it's the undeniable cultural, tech, health, economic, social services, innovation, sports... 'capital' of New England (no disrespect to the other states).
The fact that we get free videos on TH-cam by Economics Explained is truly a gift; keeping education and knowledge alive. 👍🙏🏾🤷 May I also remind you of the fact that our Native American population in our motherland, the Continent of America before the European Colonizers arrived, was around 15 millions, while the European population in their motherland, the Continent of Europe was around 25 millions. Today, Native American population is 15 million, while the European population, in the Continents of America + Europe, is a staggering TWO BILLION! A shockingly sad truth. 😔 In my humble opinion, it's about time to decolonize the Colonized lands, and return to rightful owners Native American people. Notorious global cardinal crimes the Christian West has committed, and benefited a great deal, such as centuries-long global Slavery & Colonialism had long been over, why on earth is notorious Colonization still lingering on, may I ask? 🤷
My jaw dropped as I read Native American population in their motherland, the Continent of America before the European Colonizers arrived, was around 15 millions, while the European population in their motherland, the Continent of Europe was around 25 millions. Today, Native American population is 15 million, while the European population, in the Continents of America + Europe, is a staggering TWO BILLION.. It is a shockingly sad truth. 🙁
I didn't know Washington State has such high gdp per capita. They might be similar to Massachusetts but I would like to see how they stack up on the leader board
Isn't "gdp per capita" an average? I notice a lot of "government statistics" are averages that just misrepresent the real on the ground situation for the vast majority of people who work for wages... It's unbelievable anyone accepts averages or takes any of the filthy rich's presented "statistics" as real mathematics real study or reporting or at face value Maybe legislatures ought to pass a law that no averages can be used in government statistics or some other mitigation to fight misrepresentation
All of Boston and MA is obviously the hub of ‘New England’ but it can’t be understated how lucky we are to have a region this size with minimal risk for some gigantic natural calamity every 10years or so…. Hurricanes happen but VERY rarely like anything south of sees, droughts have minimal impact, no earthquakes, virtually no tornadoes, no mudslides, no widespread forest fires and flooding is very rare/short lived… besides the fact that it’s cold AF 3 months a year, those pilgrims were onto something when they landed here 😁
@@number2and3 Still is. Unless you only get your news from Fox. In that case it is a dying state, move to NH instead and commute down here everyday because you can't find a job elsewhere.
@@Ray12121 i swear these are just buzz words ( housing quality and availability, infrastructure, and lacks freedom in its laws) for dumb people.. ok give me a state that has high housing quality and availability, high quality infrastructure, and doesn't lack freedom in its laws...
I was annoyed when TH-cam interupted the Economics Explained video I was watching until... ... I realized the ad was for an Economics Explained video on Curiosity Stream. (No, this wasn't the sponser segment, this was the actual ad)
I was born and raised in Massachusetts. Growing up in Boston in the 2000’s was fun but also dangerous. The city has massively transformed within the past 20 years from a city that understood its residents into a city that caters to yuppies and outside investors with massive pockets. Massachusetts is very expensive now and it makes it tough for the younger generation that I also happen to be apart of to buy homes or rent an apartment (even on a 6 figure salary). When I was in high school in the 2010’s homes were still affordable and the overall cost of living was still modest. During my junior year of high school the city’s beloved mayor passed away and a teamster boss took over as the mayor. Once he transitioned into power, Boston was bent over and screwed with no lube. Anything that was not a historical site was torn down and turned into massive skyscrapers that congest our small city.
if you are talking about tiktok generation then thay cant buy but other original normal generation can buy homes. cause they do one think and thats called hard work .
If a basic apartment costs $1m and your salary is $60K a year, how can you afford to buy a place to live? This is Boston now, a place where a six figure salary is a poverty level wage and people with PhD still struggle with two jobs and a side hustle.
Housing cost has become a huge problem in all of the west. If you want to know the most relevant causes, you’ll need to look at things that all these countries have in common.
You did a pretty good job on this video and it’s mostly accurate you completely missed Moderna and Biogen and all the big tech companies…and you also missed a big financial companies called Fidelity ,John Hancock and Bain capital…but their is the other side it’s expensive and crime is an issue in some areas…but overall a good state …
What if you did a video series similar to the national rankings but for companies. It would be interesting to hear how Apple, TSMC, Tesla, etc. compare
As a native masshole from Salem people mainly older people leave because of the weather which sucks and people in city’s like Lynn and east Boston are being pushed out because of gentrification
Most of my friends who are in their 20s moved out due to the cost of living and politics. The majority of folks leaving are young between 20-40s who are fed up with this state.
@ idk where you might be from but I went to school with plenty of people from Danvers Saugus and Everett who all went to work in the trades none of them have made the choice to move out and at my current college most people ik are from out of state and wanting to stay love to know where they are moving because every state in New England is just as expensive
You jumped right from the pilgrims to the ""Massachusetts Miracle"" (colleges and tech). There were several others. There was shipbuilding spearheaded by Donald McKay. Donald was the first to notice Moore's law (about ship tonnage). There was the machine tool industry started by Willard Clocks. There was the woolen milling industry that grew up when the age of sail died and others. All of this spread to the rest of the US.
From $85k to $310k that's the minimum range of profit return every week i think it's not a bad one for me, now i have enough to pay bills and take care of my family.
As a person who’s lived in Massachusetts most of my life, that state has tremendous inequalities. Most of the wealth in my state is located in the greater Boston area. (Hyde Park, Roxbury, Cambridge. Lexington etc..) Once you pass central Massachusetts through Worcester and end up in western mass where I live, there is a clear economic divide. Furthermore, the roads and getting to our state Capitol in Boston takes a long time. From western Massachusetts it takes me well over 2hours to get to the Capitol; you’d think it be quicker due to mass being small state but you’d be wrong. 😑 They are a ton of colleges/universities; you can’t step out your backyard without walking into a college.
@@chrisnorrth I am not considering Roxberry as being wealthy per se, but the GDP in that city is much higher than a town like Orange, Massachusetts that is in western mass per se.
No, we are in an "exclusivity economy", if the oligarchs limit housing, that makes it more expensive and exclusive to live there. It will lower crime because poor people who commit more crime can't live nearby. Look at Harvard for example, if they are such a good school, why has the number of student not changed over the past 20 years? It is about exclusivity of political/economic connections, not because the education is high quality. You are thinking about it like a poor person, not a rich person who actually has assets
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Anti spiral
I'm sad it isn't on Nebula instead, especially after the split.
A lot of the video clips are from NY City - Statue of Liberty, etc.
Please use New York states Flag not the city flag they are two different things and it is offensive to everyone else in the state to represent us as a whole with the city flag!
Make one on Ohio
One thing that wasn't mentioned, although adjacent to its academics, is that Boston is considered the best medical center in America, which brings in a massive amount of money even from outside the state.
Considering all the research Harvard Medical College does and all the chemistry needed for a pre-med degree, I wouldn't say it's only adjacent to academics. I will say it's applied academics and clinical work.
And yeah, all those Harvard Med students needing experience as well as all those interns and residents really do have a local effect.
Bioooootecchhhh🎉🎉🎉
Best medical center in the world**
And yet we still have massive amounts of patients struggling to get access to doctors here outside of an er visit.
Outside of the nation
An important thing missing is that Massachusetts has been rated to have the best PUBLIC primary education in the country. It isn’t just secondary education, and it isn’t only private institutions.
It's not that good. If this is the best we can do I don't want to know how much worse it is everywhere else.
It's really not that great. Speaking as a mass student in the last 15 years. It's better than the rest of the USA, sure, but still poor compared to international standards.
Democrats have started to destroy Massachusetts…
@Gnomezonbacon what town are you talking about, born an raised in mass schools are definitely the best in the public system
@@jorgiebdeandrade If the schools i went to for the last 15 years are the best this country has we're fucked.
Being born in Massachusetts definitely led to a better life for me. I enlisted in the military right out of high school. While serving, Massachusetts established a veteran benefit that gave me four years of free tuition in any state college. That got me a free BSEE from UMASS Lowell and I went on to work for companies like Raytheon, Digital Equipment Corp, Sun Microsystems - all in Massachusetts.
Mind if I ask which degree did you persue ?
@ BS in Electrical Engineering
It’s interesting how Sun Microsystems expanded from California to Massachusetts. Of course, Scott McNeally got a degree from Harvard.
So basically you were rewarded for being a good state sponsored terrorist smfh
And then there’s GE, BAE, etc etc. great opportunities here
Life-long Massachusetts resident. I like the fact that I can talk economics with my plumber 🙂
I got free calculus tutoring from a waiter at a coffee shop in Cambridge who noticed my open book.
I can go in depth about the second world war or the nuances of electoral politics with my landscaper. In Florida I could barely do that with the people in their senior year of college.
Yeah now do probability. If 80% of college degrees can't pay enough to pay for that degree why go to college.
@@br6282 You are correct, not everyone needs to or should go to college. But college is not the only way that someone can be well educated and informed. When I mentioned the plumber being able to discuss economics, it isn't because he went to college, it's because from time to time he reads books and intelligent magazines. He watches intelligent programing and is engaged with current events and the world instead of just playing on his phone on all day.
Massachusetts is a highly educated state with the best public school system of the 50 sates. Having lived in and traveled to other parts of the country, the difference is noticeable. In general, I have found that most people here are much better informed and engaged than people from other parts of the country.
@@br6282 agree with the guy above me. Neither did my landscaper go to college, we just have a culture of intellectual curiosity that percolates all lines of work
The thumbnail integrates Rhode island into Massachusetts to form the state of greater Massachusetts
i live here and didn’t even notice lol
Used to be!
Its for their own good. They will learn to love it in time
@@yoyoyo1999ify as a Rhode Islander, I will fight for my freedom!!!!
If any state should be a part of MA, it should have been ME instead of RI!
As a lifelong Massachusite, we have our challenges, but they are more than made up for by the advantages of living here. That said, the state has struggled to cope with the influx of new high skilled workers to the Boston metro area. Part of the reason is that as the state has become more upper-income, the regulations in the state have become much more strict in terms of building and employment, which (while nice on paper) can make it quite difficult to find lower-income jobs or afford to build lower-income housing. This is because the amount of oversight the state takes over employment and construction basically puts a floor on how expensive it is to employ someone or build something. My mother recently finished building her own house, and the process to get the new environmental codes authorized was over a year, and this was before she could even begin planning the construction. All together, the cost of complying with these regulations likely inflated the building of her house by around $100k. It is difficult to see how one can afford to build low-cost, low-income housing in an environment that is so relatively hostile to construction. And likewise, it can be difficult for employers to comply with Massachusetts strict employment regulations, which leads to more automation and less employment. I don't necessarily think that automation is bad, but it does reduce the opportunities for low-income residents. Having been a low-income resident at one time, I understand how hard it can be to find employment in the state without a technical background.
More and more, Massachusetts feels a bit like a large high-income suburb with a statehouse. In which the needs of lower-income residents are accounted for primarily through rhetoric, and temporary assistance, but not through a meaningful reform of the way the state approaches low-income needs. Which makes sense, as the majority of voters in Massachusetts are relatively wealthy, suburban, educated households who have a particular set of interests. They want green housing, they don't want high-density low-income housing. They want 'living wages' but they don't much care if you can't find a job at all.
All of that said, Massachusetts has been quite good to me for my whole life. The sheer amount of dynamic, thoughtful, and world-class people you find here can't be met anywhere else. Our greatest resource are our people, as the video said. And the state has done an excellent job in fostering a well-educated, high-skilled, and high-productivity population. In my opinion, that makes Massachusetts one of the best places in the world to live, if only so you can benefit by being in close proximity to these remarkable people. I just wish the state took a more pragmatic look at its own policies and realized how those policies can actually lead to more poverty, while claiming that they do the opposite.
I think it's actually "Masshole."
Good points. I'm having to re-evaluate some of my own views when considering jobs, housing and the environment. I think it's easy to care about being green when you have spare income, but when you're struggling to get by, other more pressing issues take priority.
@@FreQ135 I agree. My mom is actually a designer who worked on low-income housing that was "green" (energy efficient, waste water recycling, passive solar heating etc..). She was a proponent for more energy efficient codes, but she has found that the current requirements go beyond what is reasonable. She thinks that the benefit of energy efficiency is that, while more expensive upfront, it saves the homeowner money in the long run. However, some of the most recent codes have added a lot of bloated, buzzword friendly, requirements to new builds that add up quickly. Things like building all structures pre-wired for solar panels (even if the house is permenantly shaded). Or wiring buildings with pre-placed electric car charging ports (even if the owner doesn't own or plan to own an electric car). What it ends up meaning is that new-builds are required to purchase a lot of expensive electric infrastructure that is mostly unused for a hypothetical use-case that may never occur.
There is a smart way to do green building that isn't that expensive, like mandating more insulation on roofs and windows. But requiring everyone to install twice as much electrical wiring and capacity than they require seems wasteful, and inflationary on housing prices. Not to mention that it likely does less to actually reduce energy costs than just better insulation codes.
@@DeviousDumplin I'd have thought designing houses in certain ways that logistically allows easy/cheap installation of wiring if the resident needs it. Whilst also creating agreed packs/prices for local companies to do that work, raising with inflation each year. Eg. Make it easy and cheap for residents to add those features if they want them, but don't force it into every building. The higher priority is controling house price growth, to enable young people to afford housing so they can pair up and have kids at a younger age. If everyone is waiting until their 40's, we'll see the birth rate continue to decline, which brings it's own economic problems.
The term is Masshole
As a mass resident, another huge industry especially in Boston is hospitals. Some of the best in the world.
for personal reasons my daughter needs to go to boston every 3 months since there’s only 2 specialists in the united states and since were in rhode island it’s been most helpful. i agree entirely
We call Massachusetts the “Hub.” I was brought up believing it’s the hub of the Universe.
People say "The best" but these knuckleheads are just following procedures that dont work to get a bonus even if that means your death.
Boston hospitals have had some... difficulties in recent years but they definitely have the tools and the machines.
I had to move away to get better healthcare.
Not Some of they are THE best in the world
Speaking as someone born and raised in Massachusetts, it’s a great state, where big ideas are the go-to topic of conversation, but you really can’t overstate the challenge around housing affordability. Massachusetts, like California and New York, will buckle under the weight of its own success if we’re not careful. Leaders in the Commonwealth (Massachusetts technically calls itself a Commonwealth, not a state) need to understand that the economy is a larger system and in order for the MIT people to do their smart, highly-value added stuff, we need to have enough housing for schoolteachers, firefighters, and janitors to be able to afford to live here
Yeah. Tough one to tackle unfortunately, it’s an inherent symptom of our asset economy. Wealthy people own high value properties that only continue to rise in value, continuous expansion of residential zones is not sustainable as long as zoning laws favor single family units disproportionately, etc etc. A lot has to change
Insert Massachusetts “it appears my superiority has led to some controversy” meme here
Born, raised, and educated here in MA. I became a teacher, taught for 25 years. Now, I still work in education in Ed tech and instructional design. MA was the first state to enact major Ed reform in the 90s, way ahead of NCLB, Common Core, etc. The state has always had high standards for teachers and better salaries (relatively-speaking). While the education pressures and teacher shortages other states are feeling are also represented here, there is a collective understanding that teachers and schools are important.
Teacher salaries higher in Connecticut. That is why many Western Massachusetts teachers opt for better paying positions in Connecticut .Western Massachusetts is largely forgotten in videos extolling the virtues of living Massachusetts . The video ignored the very high living costs in Massachusetts . The Commonwealth has many great features, but our living costs have caused many residents to put Massachusetts in the rear view mirror.
@joelaino3793 I agree... I'm a massachusetts resident, but am younger. All these comments seem to be coming from people who are 35+. For the tail end millennial and early GenZ, MA is tremendously terrible place to start a life. The affordability of everything... housing, food, transportation, energy is through the charts. It's always been Taxachusetts, and I appreciate all that we get from that. But as a young adult, I fear I'll never be able to have a family or own a home if I stay here. Not unless I get financial assistance from family. And that just sucks...
MAH BOY IS WICKED SMAHT
He went to HAHVUD.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Let's gooooo
HE'S NAMED AFTER TOMMY BOY AND THE SIX SUPA BOWLS
HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES
I did my postdoc at MIT 2015-2017. I remember my first day, walking just off campus and seeing all the buildings filled with late stage startups and other bigger spinoffs that clearly came out of MIT, and it was extremely obvious the value that a juggernaut elite 'brainpower centre' can bring economically. You could even visibly see people walking across the street going between buildings on campus and the surrounding business centers its graduates built, demonstrating the crosstalk and mutual reliance on this critical mass of resources each had. It also spurred patent law firms and venture capital, bringing more expertise and money to the area and local economy. Very important lesson other regions should adopt, although creating your own MIT or Harvard would be unrealistic to recreate since they're in a different universe.
I worked at MIT LL for 12 years. Started my own business 32 years ago and just retired with only 4 college courses under my belt.😊
Israel made their own MIT and Harvard, but as an Israeli who lives in MA, I can tell that as far off as anywhere in the US is, this is the most comfortable I've been in the world outside of Israel, and these two things are not accidents.
@ yes, in the lab I worked in I had an Israeli colleague and we became good friends and he told me about the investments your country was making in technical academia. Agree as well that it’s a very welcoming culture regardless of where in the world you’re from. I say that as a Canadian who went down to MIT.
@@DrNutbagunless you’re Palestinian
I grew up in New Hampshire and went to high school in Massachusetts, since then I've moved all over the country chasing a better life as a laborer. There is nowhere better, this is the best state to succeed in if you want to work your way up from the bottom, and I can tell you exactly why: Because we foster our own who then make sure to give back to the local economy. We have cohesion and unity, a commonwealth for the common good. Learn from us, America.
Well said
Sounds like a lil northern europe country. Almost like a very large family. Social trust is important
New England is the closest thing the US has to the Nordics
@@GeorgeP-uj8xc looks that way.
@GeorgeP-uj8xc I love that comparison and I couldn't agree more.
Proud to be a part of Massachusetts. Lots of smart and hardworking people. Also, the MBTA finally has a leader that knows what to do, and they’ve been putting in so much work to fix the system. We still have a ways to go, but I’m proud to see people putting in the work to fix our issues!
I lived here all my life and it sucks, everything is so drastically expensive that if you aren’t part of the upper class you’re fucked not everything is as it’s cracked up to be people here are extremely judgmental and cold to outsiders
The big problem in MA is we need to build a lot more housing and that includes hotels in Boston. Way too much regulation with regards to that.
@@Spazticmonkey1000We hear you. Failures in life will always find Massachusetts a very hard state to live in. Lots of other failures like yourself have the same inferiority complex.
HA!!!!! I'll believe it when I see the T actually stop suckin.
@@Spazticmonkey1000 That describes Boston, but things are different outside the city. We don't usually know or care what religion our neighbors have, if any, and mind our own business about what they do in their bedrooms and what they read [as long as it doesn't disturb others]. Compare that to states where they try to force their religion on you, tell you what you can and can't read, watch, do, marry etc. You call it cold? I call it Yankee civility.
You are right about one thing, it's super expensive to live here, compared to Alabama and 3/4 of the other states. The cost of an apartment can be directly tied to how close to Downtown Crossing it is and how close to a T bus, subway or train stop.
I like it here in Massachusetts. I would also like to mention for another reason I have found people moving out, though this is definitely not reliable data as this is just talking with people (usually pretty old people too) which is the weather. A lot of people hate it being cold in Massachusetts, personally I prefer it over worrying a lot about big fires, hurricanes, or Typhoons, but I just think it’s an interesting thing to note that doesn’t really fit in a video like this
The cold is annoying, but honestly it getting dark at 4PM in the winter is the real issue. MA and New England should be on it's own time zone, separate from NY.
@@gregl1927they cannot just decide that...
It's not even that cold in mass. It'll get down to single digits for a week then climb back up to the mid 20's or 30's. Up in Maine it'll go down to -20 (with wind chill) for a week then stay at 10 degrees for another
This is a great comment. I noticed that climate got minimal attention, but there are lots of other sites that focus more on climate and recreation. Some of my international students thought that Boston Common was huge, and were surprised when I told them they could get to Blue Hills Reservation by bus. A couple of them nearly got lost and spent hours there. Some were freaked out that they might see wild animals so close to a major city!
@@nickna7387 That's like Albany, NY. I remember a couple of weeks with minus 40 and a high wind down the valley. But for snow try Syracuse, or worse, Buffalo!
As a person who lives in the part of Massachusetts that is none of these things (except expensive), I still think it's a great state.
The Boston- New York- D.C corridor, representing global level power in Knowledge- Finance- Government, is definitively the most powerful urban agglomeration extant today.
It is also an enormous target of misplaced envy by people who view the disparities in wealth between that corridor and wherever they live through a prism of cultural grievance.
President caveman chest thumper will change that. This successful blue state megaregions is an awkward reminder of the empty failure of red states with their overreliance on being America's cheap labor states and little else.
Absolutely. Boston is only 225 miles north of NYC
Been living in MA (Boston suburbs) for 14 years & before that outside of NYC.
Completely agree that this state has the smartest people. I have made many international friends over the years who went here for school, further diversifying the psyche of the state.
The state is beautiful, from Western Massachusetts to Cape Cod. Very safe, limited homeless people, nice variety with seasons changing. November -> March can be rough with the cold & lack of sun.
The cost of living is significantly higher than most places in the US and housing costs are comparable with NYC, LA, & SF. Compared to the rest of my family in NJ I notice most services cost 30% more and food/restaurants in the suburbs are comparable to NYC prices.
Overall MA is a great state, not without its flaws, but for those who can afford it, it doesn’t get much better on the East Coast USA.
Really? Because as a MA resident in the same exact area for 22 years who scored 99% average on every test i took in school, and literally had to be told by my college professor not to raise my hands so other people had a chance to answer, Mass is full of TONS of RICH ENTITLED IDIOTS that THINK they're smart because they have an Ego about being in massachusettes. Our roads suck, our healthcare sucks. Our mental health system is practically non existant and the only reason people THINK boston is smarter is because we have about 6 colleges. So really the smart people are coming here, going to school, and leaving. The REAL boston residents are usually arrogant entitled rich pricks.
As someone who has had the displeasure of being a disabled homeless in MA, we're very much here, and we very much suffer. I was given $144/month for food and as a cancer patient with very specific nutritional needs, that lasted me about a week and a half. Thank God for other charities and friends. The waiting list to have your application looked at for housing as a single male is 8 years; that is not 8 years to get housing; that is 8 years to be told if you qualify for low-income housing. All that being said, if you can survive the late fall, winter, and early spring, you're better off homeless here than homed and poor almost anywhere else. I would be dead if it wasn't for DFCI.
I am a native of Massachusetts and love living here. I would not live anywhere else. It is a beautiful state.
MGH and the hospitals are also huge economic factors (academic too)
Also a very historic site for the country brings tourists every summer
The four seasons are great. The Cape, the ocean, sports, universities, health care, technology, education, social justice, and the proximity to New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine. Western Mass is lovely as well!
The winter sucks…
Nah theyr not. Winter sucks and summer is way too humid. Weather sucks
@@joewoods409 winter >>>>
Born and raised in Boston, and I’ll go to my grave saying we’re the best state in the union. Thanks for highlighting how great we are :)
You are really not
@@JasonTheGreat-y1mwe are 😎
Always been proud to be from Massachusetts. I miss it terribly. Here in Florida it doesn’t feel too smart
I agree completely. Massachusetts also has a lot less crime than Florida.
My mother’s side of the family is from Massachusetts. I partly grew up here. Went to college here & left at 20 years old for Florida. I spent 27 years in Florida & moved back to Massachusetts this past summer. The two states are night & day, with Florida being “night” & Massachusetts being “day”. Massachusetts is a highly enlightened state with a highly educated populace. Florida has a largely ignorant populace….and proud of it too. Massachusetts invests in its citizens. Florida does very little investing in its people. It shows in the horrible educational system, poor state healthcare & transportation system. Like I said, night & day.
@ so very well said !!
I’ve wasted 28 years in Florida and can’t wait to put Florida in my rear view mirror. I’m heading for the Berkshires as soon as the right house shows up. Dreaming of a garden and people who care about nature and animals. My neighbors in Florida want to go to Africa some day so they can kill an elephant like Don Jr promotes as being a real man. I wish I could get the years back I’ve spent here. Thanks for putting it in perfect words
Fla is a giant strip mall with beaches many locals never even go to but at least Desantis bans books. I don’t trust a state that can’t figure out a bottle recycling plan
@@protectanimals9792You also don’t have to worry about some lunatic killing you in the highways in Massachusetts. It happens but not nearly as much as Fla
The video didn't have time to get into it, but outside of Boston MA is full of beautiful towns and countrysides. My home state, NH, benefits as well: companies move out of MA into NH for the tax benefits, bringing their well-educated workforce with them.
Yup, There's always spillover economics. SW Connecticut gets the benefits of NYC. Ditto for Jersey.
You are absolutely right. Historic towns like Concord are very beautiful.
Yes all the New England states have something to offer. VT NH ME are the places we go in mass to vacation. Sure they come for Cape, but we load up vehicles with dirt bikes, canoes, skis, boards, and all the rest and EXPLORE. I love Massachusetts, but to live and work in any of those states would be a dream. There was a guy who used to commute from Conn to Boston everyday. A friend of mine Boston to Providence RI as a commute. Once you are into NH - they maintain the highways like no other state I’ve seen. And commute around simple. The region isn’t big, 3 hours I’m skiing on a big mountain. I’ve done the NYC drive, it’s not bad. The bigger NH towns are just over the border of Mass. If you are out of state looking for a job I wouldn’t let “southern NH” dissuade you. Maybe I can find a company that will relocate itself and me there.
You’re not wrong but CT is slightly different than NJ. The Hartford economic area is separate from Fairfield County, yet is independently has one of the highest per capita GDP outputs of any area in the country (it was actually higher than Boston and SV less than 10 years ago). So CT generally has strength in its own right where NJ is either NYC or Philly centered.
@@UnfinishedManman As someone from Boston I’m strongly considering buying land in southern NH
A friend of mine born in the state was forced to flee, moving to Maine. Housing price became too high, as he was low income.
Woke/cancel culture just like in NYC!
An unfortunate consequence of success. States like Massachusets need to increase their funding for building housing and making sure they are publicly available. The more wealth and economic activity the state generates , the higher cost of living will become. Wages need to grow to reflect this and public efforts need to be made to both encourage that wage growth(e.g. unionization), and keep prices under control in the mean time.
A community, no matter how wealthy, cannot survive without the workers needed to maintain its various profitable systems. Those workers need to earn enough money to live comfortably, anything less is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope that MA doesn't fall into that wealth trap like so many other places.
@@AsobiMedio NO YOU CANT BUILD MORE HIGH DENSITY HOUSING HERE ITS GOING TO RUIN MY PROPERTY VALUE AND MY VIEW!!!!
@ Excellent argument, fifty thousand new ten story apartment blocks.
Unfortunately every state is being hurt by the gd nimbies big banks and other corrupt rigging the housing "market" with draconian "zoning" and other schemes
.. Unfortunately the gd "trickle down" mafia mentality is everywhere
I’m in a graduate program at MIT where I fly in for class, so I get to regularly and repeatedly “feel” the difference between Massachusetts and the rest of the states. It’s kind of hard to put into words the type of energy you feel when every person you talk to either has already had a monumental impact or is on the path to have one in the near future.
K…
Yes insufferable people like this OP are a plague on our state. They're the worst kind of people.
Remember you got it too bro. We are just a lot of traumatized Irish people with some traumatized Italian people and a couple other traumatized groups that all teamed up to get ourselves something we needed to protect ourselves with. Money. Go get that bag king and bring up our world :)
You don't even need to leave MA to experience this. Just ride the Red line, then ride the Orange line.
And that’s why people like you get so out of touch with average people
Yet you’re supposed to be our leaders…at least that’s what you believe you’re entitled to be
Nice video and congrats on the documentary, i ll check it out for sure🥰
Here is one critical part I think you missed out is that Harvard,MIT and other Universities in the State teaches Entrepreneurship as part of getting at their prestigious Degree.Their Endowment fund are which comes from their Alumini eclipsed the Tuition Fees.Their Alumini are the ones who owned the large billion dollar Global Companies who go back and literally funds many Students ideas literally from a Napkin .These Start ups are what creates New impactful Businesses and it continues.That is the real reason.
I highly recommend reading Ebony and Ivy by MIT Professor Dr. Craig Steven Wilder. The endowment of Ivy Leagues cannot be separated from the history of the schools as pathways for educating the children of rich, Southern plantation owners who exploited generations of people.
The Wentworth and NJATC collaboration was exciting. I gave ten years of my life and more trying to qualify. I got to install the lighting on the MiT dome ^.0
First, thanks for the compliment but you've missed several key points -
- MA, for the almost 70 years I’ve lived here, has had very uneven growth. In fact, up until the 1970s, one might say that MA was a laggard in the 20th century. Arguably, MA’s economy probably peaked during the WWII era until its revitalization began with the computer tech boom of the 1980s.
- Your adulation for Harvard and MIT is overdone and ignores the dozens of other colleges and universities in the Commonwealth (we aren’t a “State”), especially its public 4 year and community colleges. You also don’t mention the very high levels of investment in our public schools which have MA typically at the very top based on standardized testing.
- Your video entirely dwells on the city of Boston. Much of the rest of the Commonwealth is far, far less wealthy though arguably more scenic.
- While you seem to be enamored with robots, Boston Dynamics is a minuscule contributor to the MA economy. You don’t mention the biotech industry which is easily the fastest contributor to our economy. While not a large employer by numbers, the capital it attracts and the wealth it generates is enormous. MA hosts the world’s largest share of the bio-tech industry.
- The other major industry you’ve ignored is health. Boston is home to many of the finest hospitals in the world, staffed by tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other professionals. People from around the US, and around the world, come here to restore their health. We were the first in the nation to ensure that health care was available to all its citizens.
- MA is also a tourist magnet. Visitors come here for the history, for our Cape Cod beaches, for our many museums and other cultural institutions such as the BSO and Tanglewood. And of course we host lots of professional sports teams, even if no one outside of New England likes them. Not a mention of any of this at all in your video.
- Why do people leave MA? Mainly because it is very expensive to live here, especially in the Boston area. Heating costs are high because of our cold winters. Housing is expensive because of our lack of available land, our restrictive zoning laws and high labor costs. Our transportation infrastructure (Big Dig aside) is aging badly and we’ve not invested in public transportation on anything like the scale that is needed. Our roads are ill-maintained and horribly crowded.
- Oh, and we have just about the strictest gun laws in the country so we are far safer than most anywhere else in the US.
- Oh, oh, and cranberries too
@@GB-ez6ge The natural cranberry bog is a landmark in my town.
MA resident here. Agree with all of this
MA got one thing wrong though. CA banned employee non compete agreements in the 1930s. This might be the reason Silicon Valley is in CA, when by all rights it should have been centered on MIT. Si valley is a multi trillion dollar economy, because experienced people are free to switch jobs and join startups, and startups can hire experienced workers to pursue high value opportunities. Perhaps Harvard's corporate focus killed Route 128. We almost got a non compete ban nationally, but the courts blocked it, and Lina Kahn is out, oh well.
Agreements like that are why we have supermonopolies controling us now. it's supposed to be a FREE AND FAIR market. We're no longer under capitalism we've returned to fedualism, they just pretend its a democracy instead of being open about the Oligarchy
Yeah, but instead we became the biotech capital of the world. Not that bad.
They blocked non competes? Jeez, this world is screwed and truly oligarchy
Non-compete is rarely enforced, especially since the Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act (MNAA) in 2018. Courts are usually pro employee.
11:54 you’re telling me there was a person who had a 2.0GPA and a 780 SAT who got accepted into Harvard? I wonder what they did to achieve that
Missed opportunity to drop a "wicked smart" at the start
Actually it’s smaht
@RegiArt7 yeah but his australian accent probably would have handled that anyway
I moved here from Florida and life is more than 100% better. The problem that people have in Mass is that they are so used to the baseline being so high that they can’t appreciate what they have. Everything is better than “here”, without realizing that the reason that COL is so high is precisely BECAUSE people want to live there. Yes, Mass does need to improve its zoning and regulation and build more housing, but the amazing infrastructure, opportunity, and intelligence of everyone is precisely why people choose to stay and contribute to the local GDP. People here are also intelligent enough to talk about its flaws (compare to places in the South that are worse and everyone things they’re like heaven, Jacksonville) It’s this weird circular chain of reasoning that is really unique to Mass and Bostonians. Anyways, I absolutely love Mass and people don’t realize what they have because they’re always comparing to a hypothetical perfect place that doesn’t exist.
COL is only an issue for poor people, I say wages are more important than cost of living.
Floridians love moving to MA and we love sending people to FL. Its just a non stop cycle.
I remember growing up a lot of kids would complain about our town being "boring". But the reality is that "boring" town is actually a very nice suburb with a great school system, low crime, and strong community.
@@YouCanCallMeReTro Like seriously they don’t realize that the opposite of boring is chaos! In central Florida it wasn’t boring it was chaotic. People would die from being ran over everyday, school systems were atrocious (my high school had 4000 people), you didn’t feel safe in some areas, and nobody knew each other nor cared to - everyone for themself. I sometimes laugh at people that say Mass has a lot of crime. While it’s not crime free and it’s plain ignorant to say that, it is leagues ahead other states. Boston had 24 homicides in 2024, 24 too many but still. Meanwhile, a family member in a relatively well-off suburb in Orlando had Monopoly money visible in their car only for their windows to be shattered and the game board to be stolen. Definitely not boring…
Massachusetts should stop catering to drivers by abolishing parking minimums and other zoning reform (like allowing single stair building) to build more housing. If it can become a pedestrian, train, and bike first state, it will grow into the next decade very easily.
I couldn't be happier to call Massachusetts my home. We still have plenty of issues as others have said, but we have so many benefits from a cultural and political standing that it far outweighs the cons imo.
Side note, there's a couple of discrepancies on the historical side of things in this video unfortunately, a few have already mentioned the thumbnail issue, but notably Plymouth is not part of Cape Cod. The pilgrims did land on CC originally, but they moved to Plymouth because CC was too sandy to farm
I am cannot tell you how overjoyed I was with the irony of Phoenix University advertising on this video.
Only I need to become unaccredited in something
Imagine how much better your little comment here would translate if you attended Mass public schooling 😂
Massachusetts is the only part of US i visited.
I feel like i could migrate to Worchester or any of the towns nearby Boston when i retire.
You must come from a bad region of the world if you think Worchester is a nice place XD
@@XDSDDLordI saw bro say Worcester and started laughing 😂😂😂😂😂
I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently living in a small town 50 miles away raising a family... I honestly can't say much to welcome people here, and totally see why year after year more people move out of this state than move in. I mean, if you want to go to some Ivy league school or get into pharmaceuticals or robotics, then I get that. Unfortunately, we also have one of the highest, if not the highest, income requirements to live here. For a family of four to live comfortably here, you need to make over $300k/year, according to actual reports, I'm not just giving my opinion. Making $150k/yr here has suddenly gotten closer to living paycheck to paycheck, which I would've never imagined 20 years ago. If you're watching this video contemplating the move here, make sure your income can live up to the cost of living here.
Video Suggestion,
Bermuda, the Risk Capital of the World, would be an interesting project for a future video.
MA truly excels. However, I have a PhD in science, but it is incredibly hard to land a job in MA right now, and I am a citizen.
The book "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash spends a few chapters on the growth of MIT from a tech school to the institution it is today. Worth the read just for the history lesson.
I recently made some comments about Massachusetts and the US not being well understood by some commenters. Thanks to the research presented here, I recognize that my information seems a bit out of date, or possibly misinterpreted. I stated that MA had an SDI between Norway and Switzerland, but your economic model puts it above both of them. I hadn't realized that MA ranked after California and New York and ahead of Texas [America's Saudi Arabia]. This video didn't address infrastructure deeply. Boston benefited from being closer to Europe than NYC in the Age of Sail, but lost some of that advantage as transportation technology improved. Being at the far end of rail and road networks was something of a disadvantage. Building the Cape Cod Canal was important in lessening the seaborn transport and danger between Boston and NYC, but rail surpassed it in importance.
The picture of an abandoned factory left an important data point hanging. Many former factories have been turned into apartments or condominiums, most extremely pricy. You mentioned the integration of universities and corporate entities. I'm not sure if DARPA is widely known to be a source of military innovation, but the information was sufficient for those who are interested in that area to follow.
A major innovation that is usually underestimated is the Interstate Highway System. It was intended to be military, and arguably was one of the weapons that brought the USSR down. This system was an economic multiplier, but also distorted the economy and society away from rail and water toward gasoline fed transportation, the truck fleets are now under pressure from potential AI or robot innovation.
Thanks for another fascinating and, as usual, data rich video.
Boston's Logan airport has been getting a ton of investment recently because it is the closest major airport in North America to Europe. You don't need widebody planes to fly from Boston to Western Europe, which significantly lowers the cost of transatlantic flying.
@ If true, that's a long overdue relief. However, I was usually forced to fly to Boston via NYC, and several times was forced to endure long layovers at Kennedy and/or transfer to LaGuardia for a shuttle to Boston. Coming in through Newark was even worse!
Today I learned something new about my home state! Thanks for the vid
This is part of the reason I would never want to live anywhere else long term. Great to have been born and raised here.
Massachusetts pads the numbers, as someone from MA you either make 100,000 & can survive here or you make below that & you’re screwed especially if you pay mortgage / rent.
Yeah, it's murder for me trying to get a job in Massachusetts (especially since I live in Western MA and can't drive) but at least stuff like MassHealth's been able to keep me afloat for the moment
As a Bostonian I can say that this state is great and all but the cost of living here is ridiculous and it’s only getting worse even as someone who’s considered high income on a national level I’m barely getting by here and I can never dream of getting my own house unless I double my income.
It sucks but its a free market economy. We tried rent control and it was a miserable failure. And its literally communism...
If they build the East West rail from Boston to the western parts of the state. The housing is less expensive there than Boston area. That would help with the housing prices.
i know everyone loves their home state, but Massachusetts is truly the best place to live in this crazy country. i will always be so proud of where im from!
I’ve lived in my Massachusetts all 23 years of my life. I love the geography, the culture, the cuisine, the sports, even the winters here. I will never not call it my home. But once I learned about real estate in this state vs others, oh boy. I was amazed to see a shack of a house a couple towns outside of Boston is quadruple the value of a nice lakeside home in Maine, double the price of a typical one-family home in CT or RI etc. I understand it’s location location location, but I don’t find any way I can continue to live here unless I win the lottery. A two-room shed ADU is enough to jack a property an extra $500,000. A lot of native Mass people are moving away while a lot of already well-to-do out-of-staters are moving in. Not sure if this might cause an issue pretty soon but it’s definitely hard to watch from my POV
I was fortunate to move to Massachusetts at the age of 23 when it was still affordable. It's been a wonderful place to live and work all these years, but it's way too expensive now. I'll retire in my home state of Pennsylvania when the time comes. Real estate is literally half of what it costs in Massachusetts, and you get more land.
I love living here all my life. Its the history the beautiful towns north and south of boston and of course cape cod
I moved from mass the end of my junior year. My senior year was a review of my freshman year in mass. I was even in all ap classes it was crazy
My first semester in a highly ranked university outside of Mass was a recap of my Junior year in HS in Mass.
Lived in Mass for about 4 years (not college). It was a great place for jobs, medical, education and culture. But the Winters and housing prices were absolutely insane. Even outside of Boston. Ended up moving because even at a high salary it felt impossible to buy a decent house without generational wealth being handed down.
You’re entirely right. High real estate values and taxes. Absurd, that’s why so many people in this state move to NH
I am trying to move out, and I have to stay in MA. Even in the crappiest parts of the state, outside the Westernmost edge, good luck finding a small apartment to rent for less than $2,000. In order to find a place to live that isn't in the closest thing we have to a ghetto I have had to accept I'll be paying $2,500/month give or a take $200 for as little as 750sqft to rent when my parents have a 4000sqft house and their mortgage is $2,200/month (in MA).
Yep u said it generational wealth thats how most young home owners got there house
What is interesting, and concerning, is that many Americans mock Massachusetts. It is looked upon as too "liberal" (left wing) and is known as Taxachusetts (although is anyone really surprised that higher taxes co-exist with a higher standard of living?). It is the state that values education highest and reaps the rewards. I think the derision says something about the critics. Great video.
I don't even know why we're called Taxachusetts. I'm pretty sure we had the 21st highest taxes, so were roughly in the middle of the pack.
It doesn't value education the highest. A lot of smart people live there or move there and so they have strong educational outcomes. If you brought in a bunch of dumb people, there would be bad educational outcomes.
And California has extremely high taxes, and the "higher standard of living" this results in is having to avoid crazy homeless people and used needles on the street each day
Massachusetts has a lot of established smart people, but because they don't build anything, are regulated to death, and have insanely high taxes, it has lead to high rates of out-migration, especially young people with degrees. Massachusetts, as far as population is concerned, is really only being propped up by high rates of in-migration, particularly high-skilled legal immigration such as H1Bs. It has some of the highest rates of native brain drain in the US outside of New York and California.
Massachusetts actually has rather low taxes. Lower than many republican states. Property tax, income tax and corporate tax are all pretty much in the middle of the US.
Massachusetts affords its social programs because there's just a ton of money in the state. So the rate doesn't need to be that high to afford the programs.
I also laugh a bit when Massachusetts is criticized as being excessively liberal. I have lived here my entire life, and most people are liberal, but they aren't all that far left. Most people are moderate democrats who look at stuff on the west coast or NY and think it's all bit excessive. It's also more common to find voters who will vote for moderate republicans and vice versa. Charlie Baker was our last republican governor, and he had the highest approval ratings of any Governor at the time. Something like 80%. That isn't to say the state is centrist, but there's less stigma about crossing the aisle to vote for a moderate of the other party.
@ The income tax in MA is in the top 10 highest, I believe. Where the tax burden is lower in relative to other states is the sales tax.
Im surprised you didn't mention the dominance of biotech and medical device industries. These are arguably the most dominant industries in Massachusetts, and provide a solid foundation to the economy that makes it easier for it to weather the storms of sociopolitical and economic crises. Not to mention, give all the intelligent Massholes out there a place to go when their jobs in high tech venture capitalist companies disappear during economic storms.
I grew up in a completely average Mass town in an undesirable part of the state, where the expectation was that every student upon high school graduation would attend a private liberal arts college. I had no idea this wasn’t common until later.
At least you're not from New Bedford like me... Or are you
Also the first state to have a subway
Ah yes the infamous green line
And its obsolescence shows.
Their sandwiches are mid anyway
it’s bad
@@chichan8424 Hey we love the green line. Yeah, the breaks squeak like crazy, the trams go out of order all the time, and it gets stuck in traffic.
All that's made up for by the fact that you ride for free at street level.
Source: I rode the Green Line today
I was born and have lived in Massachusetts all my life. As here we made history by being the first to do many things. Especially in the area of civil rights
Canadian person here, my father and a lot of his side of my family is from Massachusetts. I’ve seen the Commonwealth before and it is an absolutely beautiful state and I thank the father God for giving me a dad like the one I have. I love Massachusetts and when I get older I will be very interested on moving over there. I think all states of the USA are equally good in their own rights but I personally would move to MA because I biologically am connected to it. God Bless you to the folks reading this!! ❤
I'm so proud to be from Massachusetts. Especially regarding education. I went to public school here and then taught college in Florida and let me tell you, college freshmen in Florida would not have passed my 10th grade high school classes in Massachusetts
You also forgot one MIT startup that might well be the most valuable company on earth in 15 years if their tech works as advertised. Commonwealth Fusion Systems is currently building a demonstrator fusion power plant in Devens, Massachusetts and has already unveiled plans for their first grid-scale plant in Chesterfield, Virginia.
The expensive housing SUCKS, but it’s such a beautiful state, and a beautiful place to live!
You didn’t mention the natural beauty that can be found in the Western part of the state or our world class museums, symphonies & historical sites. Western MA, with our 5 Colleges system & healthy lifestyles is the place to be in this Commonwealth!
Even in the last 10 years Massachusetts has changed immensely, so much different from what it used to be
I'm curious if you'll elaborate on how so?
@@eddiesalinas The rise of Biotech, and the change of Boston from the old Townie identity to a truly international city/
@@willburke6361 thank you for the note! Yes, it seems like over recent years, particularly, since 2015 it's been quite "biotechie"! If I ride the subway, I see lots of people I'd not imagine to be "townies"!
@@eddiesalinas I grew up in kind of a classic american town. Most people I know who grew up there their families moved out in the last 10 years and some real estate company knocks down their tasteful home and builds an ugly mcmansion on top of it. Its very expensive to live there now as property values and thus taxes soared. Influx of high-income people and real estate developers pricing out the middle class. Even those who can afford it many choose to move as their kids have graduated and they opt to go down south or find a cheaper place somewhere else in the region. The town was already upper-middle class to begin with, but it fully drifted into a rich town.
The best thing about this too is we have may be the richest state but the roads, infrastructure, schools. Everything is going down the gutter and we supposedly have ALL this money but nothing gets fixed or if it does it takes years. Im starting to believe this state has some serious corruption.
I was one of those people who went to Boston for college, Boston University, and agree that it is a state full of very smart people. The cultural, educational, healthcare and employment possibilities almost seemed endless. The quality of professors and the opportunities to collaborate with other universities and the private sector were unmatched. I agree with the expense of living there being a downside, but there is one other thing. The weather in winter! December, January and February can be pretty brutal with the cold, snow and gray cloudiness. The summers are wonderful, but I know many people who left because of the winters. As a personal anecdote, I remember a weekend in late January of my sophomore year when we had so much snow that we could not get out of our dormitory. It was piled up about 10 feet against the building and the doors that opened outward were blocked. On the second day some people were exiting out through the second floor windows to get food only to be greeted by temperatures of 10 degrees F. That gave me some serious second thoughts to staying after graduation.
The winter weather isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, especially if you're in Boston. I remember when I was a kid, we'd get genuine blizzards at least half a dozen times a year. But now, we get a lot of days where its a pretty nice humid 40-50, and we rarely get blizzards anymore. The worst days are when its a dry 20, and there's a shitload of wind from the buildings. Winters before had me question why people live here. Winters now are a pretty good tradeoff for all the other benefits of living here.
Lifelong resident here. My mom used to say "Don't fuss about the cold. It tends to filter out the soft ones"
You'd love to hear that we don't get much snow anymore. When I moved here in the early 2000s, I went from barely ever seeing snow in my life to a blizzard every year. The first year I moved here, I saw more cumulative snowfall than I did in the past five years here.
Another thing to add is that the Boston Metro is the hub of Bio Science development
I just found another favorite state,I’ve felt so out of place for years and I taught living in a place surrounded by smart people was impossible,I like country life but this might be my favorite city state.
Massachusetts resident and Worcester State University student here 🙋🏻♂️
It's also important to note that MIT and Harvard are not just good at tech but also in the social sciences.
Well, the nice thing about the social sciences is that there is no accountability.
@@allthenewsordeath5772 I don't consider them "sciences".
Wow, we rock! The nation should look to us for education particularly the low performing states like Alabama and Tennessee.
A lot of smart people live in/move to MA. That's why it has good educational outcomes, not because the schools are magically better than the rest of the country. If you took a bunch of poor minorities from Alabama and put them in an MA public classroom, they would likely do hardly any better in school.
Not tomorrow, but it wouldn't be a surprise if they got a better result with the same group of kids over 10 years or whatever.
The south is just different. People tend to be way, way more self sufficient than those living in the Northeast.
@@ousamaabdu794 ignorant and uneducated*
@@ousamaabdu794 good joke
As someone from Massachusetts, thank you for not making jokes about our accent.
We ah wickid smaht.
yes! I'm super grateful to live here but can be ashamed of my accent at times. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather live here and have a horrible accent than most other places.
Remember, the accent disappears as you drive west.
@@swurvestar1ashamed? SMH it’s the greatest in the country
Sort of on the side... born, raised and worked most of my life in MA (Boston area), 2-1/2 yrs ago moved to its northern neighbor NH (Manchester, due to wife's new job). From experiences and formal/informal connections in both states, I feel I can say MA absolutely has it's issues and NH has a few pulses... but it kills me how NH's new and old governor (Kelly Ayotte and Sununu respectively) keep hating on MA rather than work with, or learn from, the state (at least openly). They and the (Trump) repubs up here say the usual BS that MA "is a failed Soci-communist state". Effectively the bottom 1/3rd of NH commutes to MA everyday for jobs. Yeah if NH could have as much of a failure. Again MA has big issues to deal with but it's the undeniable cultural, tech, health, economic, social services, innovation, sports... 'capital' of New England (no disrespect to the other states).
The best part of Massachusetts is the view of New Hampshire
Awesome video. Could you do a video on the economics of New Hampshire or Texas? The tax benefits of those states are interesting.
Texas video was a year ago.
The fact that we get free videos on TH-cam by Economics Explained is truly a gift; keeping education and knowledge alive. 👍🙏🏾🤷
May I also remind you of the fact that our Native American population in our motherland, the Continent of America before the European Colonizers arrived, was around 15 millions, while the European population in their motherland, the Continent of Europe was around 25 millions.
Today, Native American population is 15 million, while the European population, in the Continents of America + Europe, is a staggering TWO BILLION! A shockingly sad truth. 😔
In my humble opinion, it's about time to decolonize the Colonized lands, and return to rightful owners Native American people.
Notorious global cardinal crimes the Christian West has committed, and benefited a great deal, such as centuries-long global Slavery & Colonialism had long been over, why on earth is notorious Colonization still lingering on, may I ask? 🤷
A gift.
Amen.
I agree with you.
Surely
My jaw dropped as I read Native American population in their motherland, the Continent of America before the European Colonizers arrived, was around 15 millions, while the European population in their motherland, the Continent of Europe was around 25 millions.
Today, Native American population is 15 million, while the European population, in the Continents of America + Europe, is a staggering TWO BILLION.. It is a shockingly sad truth. 🙁
I didn't know Washington State has such high gdp per capita. They might be similar to Massachusetts but I would like to see how they stack up on the leader board
Microsoft and Amazon…
no income tax = haven for billionaires
That’s Washington DC 😂
Seattle is the biggest tech hub behind SF, so not that surprising
Isn't "gdp per capita" an average? I notice a lot of "government statistics" are averages that just misrepresent the real on the ground situation for the vast majority of people who work for wages...
It's unbelievable anyone accepts averages or takes any of the filthy rich's presented "statistics" as real mathematics real study or reporting or at face value
Maybe legislatures ought to pass a law that no averages can be used in government statistics or some other mitigation to fight misrepresentation
Love the thumbnail
Living in Boston after graduating from MIT, so my view is skewed... but i do enjoy it here more than NYC overall.
Miles better than NYC, but still a state that hates poor people.
It's a shame how many people here in Massachusetts live in poverty despite our state's wealth
All of Boston and MA is obviously the hub of ‘New England’ but it can’t be understated how lucky we are to have a region this size with minimal risk for some gigantic natural calamity every 10years or so….
Hurricanes happen but VERY rarely like anything south of sees, droughts have minimal impact, no earthquakes, virtually no tornadoes, no mudslides, no widespread forest fires and flooding is very rare/short lived… besides the fact that it’s cold AF 3 months a year, those pilgrims were onto something when they landed here 😁
I’m from MA and have my Ph.D. My entire home town is full of doctors. And somehow our state legacy is bad driving.
Massachusetts is a great state
*was
@@number2and3 Still is. Unless you only get your news from Fox. In that case it is a dying state, move to NH instead and commute down here everyday because you can't find a job elsewhere.
Too many homeless drug addicts at ever intersection.
It's rich by the numbers but poor by many other standards like housing quality and availability, infrastructure, and lacks freedom in its laws.
@@Ray12121 i swear these are just buzz words ( housing quality and availability, infrastructure, and lacks freedom in its laws) for dumb people.. ok give me a state that has high housing quality and availability, high quality infrastructure, and doesn't lack freedom in its laws...
I was annoyed when TH-cam interupted the Economics Explained video I was watching until...
... I realized the ad was for an Economics Explained video on Curiosity Stream.
(No, this wasn't the sponser segment, this was the actual ad)
I was born and raised in Massachusetts. Growing up in Boston in the 2000’s was fun but also dangerous. The city has massively transformed within the past 20 years from a city that understood its residents into a city that caters to yuppies and outside investors with massive pockets. Massachusetts is very expensive now and it makes it tough for the younger generation that I also happen to be apart of to buy homes or rent an apartment (even on a 6 figure salary). When I was in high school in the 2010’s homes were still affordable and the overall cost of living was still modest.
During my junior year of high school the city’s beloved mayor passed away and a teamster boss took over as the mayor. Once he transitioned into power, Boston was bent over and screwed with no lube. Anything that was not a historical site was torn down and turned into massive skyscrapers that congest our small city.
so where are you now?
if you are talking about tiktok generation then thay cant buy but other original normal generation can buy homes. cause they do one think and thats called hard work .
Marty Walsh RUINED this city
If a basic apartment costs $1m and your salary is $60K a year, how can you afford to buy a place to live? This is Boston now, a place where a six figure salary is a poverty level wage and people with PhD still struggle with two jobs and a side hustle.
Housing cost has become a huge problem in all of the west. If you want to know the most relevant causes, you’ll need to look at things that all these countries have in common.
Very interesting!
You did a pretty good job on this video and it’s mostly accurate you completely missed Moderna and Biogen and all the big tech companies…and you also missed a big financial companies called Fidelity ,John Hancock and Bain capital…but their is the other side it’s expensive and crime is an issue in some areas…but overall a good state …
What if you did a video series similar to the national rankings but for companies. It would be interesting to hear how Apple, TSMC, Tesla, etc. compare
Awake and was waiting. Thanks ee.
Proud to be part of Massachusetts
Proud that the first COVID vaccine came from our own Moderna! Just another example of Massachusetts leading role in research and development.
Wow bro your an a idiot this is not a good thing bro😭😭🤦🏿♂️
Before you all rush to come here to MA, you should know a 1 bedroom apartment is $2000 a month and up. So don't get too excited.
The richest, most educated, and the bluest 💙
Why does Detroit suck? 70 years of being run by Democrats isn't enough? Baltimore?
Technically the most blue state politically, but socially I think Seattle, WA and Portland, OR are the most liberal.
Plenty of other states have similar average IQs. Pretty much the entire plains region and New England.
Would love to see an episode on Belgium!
As a native masshole from Salem people mainly older people leave because of the weather which sucks and people in city’s like Lynn and east Boston are being pushed out because of gentrification
Most of my friends who are in their 20s moved out due to the cost of living and politics. The majority of folks leaving are young between 20-40s who are fed up with this state.
@ idk where you might be from but I went to school with plenty of people from Danvers Saugus and Everett who all went to work in the trades none of them have made the choice to move out and at my current college most people ik are from out of state and wanting to stay love to know where they are moving because every state in New England is just as expensive
@@warcrimeenjoyer219 WHAT? Bro the cost of living in NH or Maine is NOWHERE NEAR Mass. You're just making stuff up now lol
The cost of living really is insane. Gas prices aren't too bad at least.
You jumped right from the pilgrims to the ""Massachusetts Miracle"" (colleges and tech). There were several others. There was shipbuilding spearheaded by Donald McKay. Donald was the first to notice Moore's law (about ship tonnage). There was the machine tool industry started by Willard Clocks. There was the woolen milling industry that grew up when the age of sail died and others. All of this spread to the rest of the US.
Textiles
From $85k to $310k that's the minimum range of profit return every week i think it's not a bad one for me, now i have enough to pay bills and take care of my family.
I'm celebrating a $30k stock portfolio today. Started this journey with 6k, i have invested on time and also with the right terms now.
Wow that's huge, how do you make that much, I'm 37 and have been looking for ways to be successful, please how??
Ohh yeah, that was possible with the help of my Guru Layla zoe ❤️❤️❤️
As a person who’s lived in Massachusetts most of my life, that state has tremendous inequalities. Most of the wealth in my state is located in the greater Boston area. (Hyde Park, Roxbury, Cambridge. Lexington etc..) Once you pass central Massachusetts through Worcester and end up in western mass where I live, there is a clear economic divide. Furthermore, the roads and getting to our state Capitol in Boston takes a long time. From western Massachusetts it takes me well over 2hours to get to the Capitol; you’d think it be quicker due to mass being small state but you’d be wrong. 😑 They are a ton of colleges/universities; you can’t step out your backyard without walking into a college.
And I find that the richest communities in our state aren’t populated by people who are even from here
@ Absolutely!
Never in my life did I think I’d hear Roxbury associated with wealth…
@@chrisnorrth I am not considering Roxberry as being wealthy per se, but the GDP in that city is much higher than a town like Orange, Massachusetts that is in western mass per se.
@@WeWhoSuffer Roxbury and Hyde Park are neighborhoods of Boston, not cities or towns themselves. This is a confusing comment lol
Closer you get to Boston, the more unaffordable housing gets lol. Need to build some more houses and you’d see the prosperity 10x
No, we are in an "exclusivity economy", if the oligarchs limit housing, that makes it more expensive and exclusive to live there. It will lower crime because poor people who commit more crime can't live nearby. Look at Harvard for example, if they are such a good school, why has the number of student not changed over the past 20 years? It is about exclusivity of political/economic connections, not because the education is high quality. You are thinking about it like a poor person, not a rich person who actually has assets
No you wouldn’t, It’s the cost of the land, not the house.
@@ArchesBro This is the average mass resident btw. this is the exact reason why mass is only good on paper.
The T is coming to the southcoast, half price down here!
It's expensive in Worcester too!