COVID-19

With the deadline for spending $2.9 billion in federal pandemic relief funds now less than a year away, it’s difficult to know exactly how Massachusetts school districts are spending the money and what impact those expenditures are having on students, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

After a decade of relative stability, COVID has wreaked havoc with Massachusetts public school enrollments, and the U.S. Department of Education projects more declines by 2030, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute. The figures should serve as a warning to vulnerable districts that they must be prepared for the financial, staffing, and facilities impacts that may accompany substantial drops in public school enrollments.

This report examines whether, after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, the U.S. will have another looming public health crisis emerging from patients failing to have had their cardiology needs addressed properly during the lockdowns. Moreover, if we surmise that a follow-on public health crisis will emerge, we can also conclude that certain population segments are going to be more impacted by CVD, as there are documented health disparities in this therapeutic area. Finally, there are policy changes that could be taken to mitigate a possible spike in CVD adverse events; the paper will close by recommending certain policy changes.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating effect on our economy, and Greater Boston’s transit agency — the MBTA — also took a hit. Using Pioneer Institute’s MBTA Analysis Database, one can compare MBTA ridership trends to those of other U.S. public transportation...

Using MassEconomix, Pioneer Institute’s database on employment and the economy, county-level business concentration and employment trends can be observed. Thousands of Americans lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only was this drop in employment apparent in the Boston area, but...

In Massachusetts, the association between education and demographic factors such as socioeconomic status can be elucidated by examining the New England City and Town Areas (NECTA) data. These data are from Pioneer Institute’s education data on MassAnalysis, part of the Institute’s MassWatch...

  The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on unemployment rates across the United States. Previous analyses of the effects of COVID on employment rates by Gregory Sullivan and Rebekah Paxton of Pioneer Institute have suggested that occupations in the hospitality...

In Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs on curricular resources for parents, families, and teachers during COVID-19, this one focuses on: Celebrating Classical Music.

During the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) payroll data presented a 29.09% increase in the average employee’s overtime pay from the previous year. Pioneer wanted to dig deeper into the Department’s compensation trends to put the $5M bump in 2020 DPH overtime pay into perspective.

Massachusetts’ emergency declaration for COVID-19 ends on June 15, and with it some enhanced flexibility that has been allowed in the healthcare system.  Some of the added flexibility highlighted barriers that make the system more expensive, harder to access and less patient-centered, and the Commonwealth should consider permanently removing these barriers, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.