The Construction of Encore Boston Harbor: Spending, Employment, and Economic Impacts
November 2020
The Economic & Public Policy Research (EPPR) group analyzed the direct and indirect economic impacts of the Encore Boston Harbor casino complex. The analysis was led by Senior Research Manager Rod Motamedi. EPPR's work is part of the Social and Economic Impacts of Gaming in Massachusetts project led by the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences.
In brief, the findings are below.
Where were the construction dollars spent?
- Almost three-quarters of the construction budget ($1.1B of $1.6B) went to firms based in Massachusetts. Nearly 60 percent of Massachusetts’ share ($662M or 40 percent of the total) remained in Middlesex and Suffolk Counties.
- Firms based in the City of Everett received $32 million in contracts.
- The remaining quarter that went out of state ($446M) was distributed among 36 states. Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York accounted for over $200M of that amount while $71M went outside of the country.
- Thirteen percent of the total contract value went to firms that met at least one element of the diversity criteria while another fifth went to local businesses from the region.
Where did construction workers reside and was it a diverse workforce?
- In total, half of in-state workers lived in Middlesex and Suffolk Counties. Residents of Everett did about five percent of all the work.
- Workforce diversity statistics suggest that the Encore Boston Harbor construction workforce largely reflected the composition of the populations from which they were drawn.
- Members of minority groups did one-quarter of the work on the Encore Boston Harbor construction site, which is similar to their share of statewide construction workers. Overall, the construction workers were over 90 percent male and non-veteran, which is also similar to statewide shares.
- The share of the work done by minority construction workers from Everett was less than the city’s minority share of working age population. Our findings showed that non-White workers did 46 percent of all the work compared to 63 percent of Everett’s working age population being Black, Hispanic, Native American, or Asian. We could not find reliable data on the racial/ethnic mix of only those workers who are in construction occupations.
What were the total statewide economic impacts of constructing Encore Boston Harbor?
- Increases in company revenues and employment drive larger changes in the economy, which are estimated using an economic model.
- Overall, total statewide economic activity (also known as output) increased by $2.6 billion over the five-year construction period.
- Net new economic activity (i.e., value added or gross state product) totaled almost $1.6 billion. About 2,500 jobs were created or supported by this economic activity. These jobs accrued $1 billion of income.
- When the estimates of total economic impacts are compared to Encore Boston Harbor’s construction expenditures, the results show that every $1.55 of construction spending created about $1 of additional economic activity in Massachusetts and every in-state job created another 0.85 jobs elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
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