Mass. business confidence slides with tariffs, wage increase
Several media outlets ran a story from the State Houes News Service about the latest results from the Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index.
The following quotes are from the story, accessed from Worcester Business Journal.
Confidence among Massachusetts employers took a dive in June, dropping more than 5 percentage points in the Associated Industries of Massachusetts index. The Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index stood at 61.3 in June, down from 66.6 in May and half a percentage point below where it stood a year ago but still "well within the optimistic range," analysts said. AIM said the decrease came as "tariffs, rising raw-material costs and approval of paid family and medical leave in the Bay State" stirred concern about business growth.
Before President Donald Trump stoked fresh fears of trade wars with China and traditional American trading partners, economists at MassBenchmarks, an economic journal published by the UMass Donahue Institute with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, wrote in May about the critical connection between the health of the state and national economies. "State economic performance is linked, through its industry mix, to national and global growth. Massachusetts' continued economic expansion is predicated on the health of the U.S. economy, as well as economies around the world," the group wrote in a summary of its May meeting. "At the moment, the future looks bright."
The State House News Service story (authored by Colin Young) was also carried by the Berkshire Eagle.
Read article: Mass. business confidence slides with tariffs, wage increase
July 09, 2018
