Boston Globe: Mass feels pinch on federal workers
Daniel Hodge, director of the Economic and Public Policy Research (EPPR) group at the UMass Donahue Institute was quoted in a Boston Globe article that detailed the impact of federal sequestration policies on Massachusetts workers and the state’s economy.
Employees are losing as much as 30 percent of their salaries at a time when the lackluster economy needs consumers to spend. Sequestration has also sliced statewide housing programs for the poor, forcing some agencies to lay off staff. The cuts, aimed at reducing the federal deficit, began to take effect in March, but only in recent months have they begun to be felt across Massachusetts, which receives more federal spending for defense and research programs than most states.
“There’s mounting evidence sequestration is having a real impact in terms of the state’s employment trajectory,” Hodge said “For some months ahead, maybe six months, it’s going to be hard for our economic recovery to turn into the type of true expansion we’ve all been hoping for.”
Economists at the Donahue Institute project that sequestration will cost the state tens of thousands of jobs over the next several years.
Read article: Mass. feels pinch on federal workers
July 21, 2013
