by Jon Hurst, President & CEO

There’s no escaping the message in the press, in political campaigns, and in consumer spending: costs are high and affordability continues to weigh on both our residents and our employers.  Who is to blame depends on the particular costs, as well as who you ask. The solutions depend on the willingness of elected officials to do anything meaningful about the problems.

Families and small businesses have incomes coming from paychecks or sales, with a variety of costs ranging from necessary to discretionary.  The problem facing too many families and too many small businesses that serve them is that monthly income or sales growth haven’t kept up with monthly costs of living or costs of doing business.  Monthly taxes; mortgage or rent payments; groceries for families; inventory for sellers; health insurance premiums; heating and cooling bills; and other bills which must be paid, increasingly leave little or nothing for discretionary spending or savings at the end of the month. Most families and small businesses can withstand the higher costs versus flat income mismatch for a period of months, or even years, but not forever.    

That imbalance ultimately results in families leaving the state and small businesses closing their doors.  The domestic outmigration from Massachusetts as reported by the US Census for last year was 33,000, continuing a troubling multi-year trend.  Also, small businesses closing their doors continues six years after the damaging COVID restrictions and messaging.     

By Jon Hurst, President & CEO

At the Annual Meeting of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts (RAM) last November, Governor Maura Healey said the following to rousing applause: “I know one of the real concerns is the cost of health insurance. I want to work with you all on actually doing something about that.”    

(https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/11/23/business/healey-health-insurance-reform-retailers/?p1=BGSearch_Advanced_Results)

As the 2025-2026 Legislative Sessions gets more active; and as the Division of Insurance begins rate hearings on the 2026 small business health insurance rates, it’s now time for action.  RAM members saw an average premium increase of 11% in 2025, and that is on top of increases which averaged in double digits each year over the past two decades.  Small employers are seeing premium increases which are 2-3 times the increases of the inflation rates, the state buying group (Group Insurance Commission), the Health Policy Commission state Benchmark (currently 3.6%). 

MAY. 9, 2016 • BY BILL RENNIE

Over the past few years, an increasing number of Massachusetts cities and towns, roughly twenty or so at this point, have taken steps to regulate plastic bags. Early on, some communities adopted measures requiring plastic carry out bags to be of a certain thickness (mils), banning anything thinner than the standard they set in their ordinance or by-law.

Taking the issue a step further, an ordinance took effect last month in the City of Cambridge that prohibits so called, single-use plastic bags with handles at the point of sale, and instituted a mandatory minimum $0.10 charge for any bag that is provided to a customer, such as a paper, compostable or reusable bag. Now a statewide bill, H.4168, An Act to reduce plastic bag pollution, has advanced out of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, that includes the mandatory $0.10 charge for any bag provided, but also bans outright ALL plastic bags – including the reusable plastic bags they’ve been telling us to use for years!

When did the plastic bag become Public Enemy Number One?

JAN. 22, 2016 • BY RYAN KEARNEY

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Boston Herald's January 22nd print edition. It was prepared in response to a previously published Herald Op-Ed discussing the inherent flaws of the "Fight for $15" campaign. In addition to the general concerns identified in the Op-Ed, the LTE shines a light on two major outliers in Massachusetts wage law which would result in additional costs to the reatil industry in the event a $15 minimum wage proposal proved successful.

$15 mandate goes too far

The Herald is correct in saying that “the ‘Fight for 15’ campaign is flawed” (“Wage protest on radar,” Jan. 19). Presented as a grassroots social movement, this union-led campaign is designed to accomplish through one-size-fits-all legislation what its leaders could not accomplish at the negotiation table. This approach ignores the negative economic impact to small employers — our primary engine for new job growth — who will struggle to afford new labor costs. The result will be fewer job opportunities for the very workers the campaign claims to support.