Pioneer Research

From April 2020 through July 2025, Massachusetts experienced a net loss of approximately 182,000 residents to domestic outmigration — the equivalent of losing one-and-a-half Cambridges. While a recent surge in international immigration temporarily boosted labor force numbers, new research from Pioneer Institute shows that underlying demographic, workforce, and economic challenges continue to threaten the Commonwealth’s long-term competitiveness. 

February's edition of The House Call discusses new legal action over Massachusetts' multifamily zoning mandate for transit-accessible communities. It also highlights a new federal data release that shows where many Massachusetts homeowners tend to overestimate - or underestimate - their property values.

Calls for choices of high school pathways, early and end-of-course exams, and independent district accountability

Governor Maura Healey’s fiscal year 2027 budget totals $62.8 billion, a 3.8 percent year-over-year increase. The budget avoids sweeping new initiatives and largely preserves existing structures. That might be defensible in a period of stability. It is indefensible now. 

A new statewide poll finds overwhelming support among Massachusetts adults for expanding vocational-technical high school capacity, along with broad backing for school choice options, including the new Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program.

Context Pioneer Institute has previously gone toe-to-toe with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) over flawed and misleading tax analyses—notably ITEP’s advocacy for the 2022 surtax on high earners as good for the Bay State economy. That argument that has proven to hold about...

Newly released Census Bureau data show that Massachusetts’ population growth is now entirely dependent on immigration, as domestic out-migration rose again in 2025 and underlying demographic and economic weaknesses reasserted themselves. 

This edition of The House Call describes a legal complaint alleging that Cambridge’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, which requires set-asides for below-market-rate housing in new development, is a regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. It also describes a number of actions the Commonwealth...

Boston, Mass – A new report from the Cicero Institute and Pioneer Institute finds that while state legislatures remained active on telehealth policy in 2025, most states made only incremental progress toward modern, patient-centered telehealth systems. With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill and its $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, states now face growing pressure to modernize outdated telehealth laws or risk falling behind in access, affordability, and federal funding competitiveness.

Class action challenges city’s unlawful penalties against commercial taxpayers who exercised their right to appeal; seeks court intervention to end this retaliatory scheme in next fiscal year