Here’s the Boston Globe’s description of the people leaving Massachusetts:

Boston Indicators, the research arm of the Boston Foundation, published an analysis exploring trends in so-called domestic outmigration in Massachusetts, or people leaving for elsewhere in the United States. Looking at a two-year average across 2021 and 2022, the analysis found that the people moving out of Massachusetts were predominantly white, middle- and high-income earners, and college-educated.

Particularly dire: Working-age adults are leaving in droves. On net, Massachusetts lost an average of 22,631 people ages 25 to 44 across 2021 and 2022 — the largest number of any age group and a marked increase over previous years, according to the report. For perspective, that’s about the size of the population of Winchester.

It’s been about 20 years since I started warning Rhode Island that our data told a similar story, and I coined the term “productive class.”  Rhode Island and now Massachusetts are driving out precisely those people who move an area forward:  those who are primed to transform their time and talents into productive activity.

Lose these folks and, as we’re seeing in precipitous experience in the Ocean State, you get the government plantations, which involves special interests using government to make government the areas core occupation by finding clients for government services and looking for excuses to bill other people.  That model won’t last long, probably not even to the point that the mid-career special interests are ready to cash out and move to Florida.