California Tax Experiment: Policy Makers Receive Valuable Economics Lesson

This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Gary Christenson, Mayor of Malden, the second most diverse city in Massachusetts, with almost 43 percent of its residents born outside of the United States. It’s also home to The Immigrant Learning Center, the co-producer of this podcast. It’s always been a gateway city for immigrants and refugees, and it is this diversity that gives Malden its strength. Mayor Christenson looks to the revitalization of downtown with its disproportionate number of immigrant-owned businesses, and talks with us about managing the relationships between long-time residents and new immigrants, the reaction of the city to hate crimes after the Boston Marathon bombing, how much immigrants have given back to their new home, and his stance on sanctuary cities, in this week’s JobMakers.

This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with John Dearie, founder and president of the Center for American Entrepreneurship, a Washington, D.C.-based research, policy and advocacy organization. Immigration is core to his mission to build a policy environment that promotes entrepreneurship because he knows all too well that the United States was and continues to be built by entrepreneurial immigrants who had the drive and determination to pick up, leave everything they know behind, and build a new life in a new homeland.

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Bernat Olle, co-founder and CEO of Vedanta Biosciences, about his journey from Catalonia, Spain, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he continued his Chemical Engineering studies at MIT. Navigating the complex immigration system while seeking purpose in his career, he eventually found his calling and was lucky enough to remain in the U.S. to see it through: designing a new class of medicines to modulate the human microbiome. 

Drawing on migration patterns between Massachusetts and states like Rhode Island and Tennessee, Pioneer Institute is releasing a study showing a direct correlation between personal income tax rates and household domestic migration patterns between 2004 and 2019. The study suggests that instituting a graduated income tax will shrink the tax base and deter talented workers and innovative employers from coming to and staying in the Bay State.

A provision of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 strictly limiting deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) will greatly exacerbate the adverse effects of a proposal to create a constitutionally mandated graduated income tax, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with NFIB’s Chris Carlozzi and Retailers Association of Massachusetts' Jon Hurst about the challenges and future prospects for businesses as they adapt to widespread consumer confusion caused by vague and often conflicting public health messaging from our political leadership.

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Trevor Mattos, research manager at Boston Indicators, the research center at The Boston Foundation, which educates state and local leaders on the important contributions immigrants are making. They discuss the urgency of this work, particularly in a time of divisive disinformation about immigrants and the uncertainty of the pandemic, and some of the surprising findings on the disproportionately large impact immigrant workers, entrepreneurs and innovators are having on the local economy

A new white paper by Pioneer Institute calls for increased transparency over the basis for payment in lieu of taxes (“PILOT”) agreements between municipal governments and nonprofit organizations, while also encouraging nonprofits to publicize and expand the community benefits they provide.