cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3160934
Students in Massachusetts will get free lunch and breakfast at school thanks to a new 4% tax put on people who earn more than $1 million.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3160934
Students in Massachusetts will get free lunch and breakfast at school thanks to a new 4% tax put on people who earn more than $1 million.
How did they get that money after all the millionaires fled the state like they always say they will?
They are. It’s not a direct cash transfer but instead a portion of the budget that everyone pays into. Additionally, people are required to pay taxes on their income earned within a state while they live there. Moving won’t impact their taxes for that year.
There is a massive outflow of wealth from Massachusetts. It’s difficult to determine how that translates to income as there’s a lot of industry linked to education in the commonwealth. Anyone who claims with certainty one way or another right now is talking ignorance until the state publishes actual revenues and by source and we can assess the trend over time.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/05/16/wealthy-residents-fleeing-massachusetts-and-have-been-for-years-study-shows/
That study sounds pretty suspect from the outside. The Herald appears to be taking out direct quotes that have some very heavy political bias.
We ultimately won’t know until next year’s budget is reported. We only can really view 2021 in detail right now. This change goes into effect this year so we’ll see the change in revenue likely detailed in late 2024. Then we can look at a trend analysis in 2025 to determine if higher income household are moving out. Anyone who makes any claims outside of this is not basing it on real revenue data.
In five more years everyone will be moving here trying to get away from climate disasters in other parts of the country anyway so I’m not particularly worried about it. We were also just rated the best state in the country to live and raise a family too so 🤷♂️
Given that Boston already has flooding as is due to increased rainfall and the degrading nature of the dams on the Charles, I would prefer we try to mitigate things before we pretend like we will be fine for us.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
I wouldn’t claim a management of funds on them. That would be intellectually dishonest. I also don’t think they were recommending this move. It was a populous initiative. That being said, we’ll see if the trends materialize to make it worth the change.