Election Results

The Massachusetts primaries for statewide office were held last night. The winners for each respective race will face their party opponent in the general election in November. Please see last night’s winners below:

Governor

• Maura Healey (D)
• Geoff Diehl (R)

Lt. Governor

• Kimberly Driscoll (D)
• Leah Allen (R)

Attorney General

• Andrea Cambell (D)
• James McMahon (R)

Secretary of State

• William Galvin (D)
• Ryla Cambell (R)

Auditor

• Dianna Dizoglio (D)
• Anthony Amore (R)

For more details and full results see the Boston Globe Election Page

Maura Healy to Face Geoff Diehl in November Governor’s Race

Boston Globe – Attorney General Maura Healey, who rocketed to prominence as the state’s litigator-in-chief against Donald Trump before clearing the Democratic field for governor this year, officially captured the party’s nomination Tuesday, setting up an acrid general election fight with Geoff Diehl, a Trump acolyte whom GOP voters embraced as their gubernatorial nominee.

The results, projected by the Associated Press Tuesday night, cement the general election race to succeed Governor Charlie Baker, the state’s second-term Republican who is not seeking reelection.

The matchup will top a ballot of potentially history-making races. Healey’s endorsed successor, Andrea Campbell, emerged victorious in a primary for attorney general to become the first Black woman ever to win a Democratic nomination for a statewide office

Campbell beats Liss-Riordan in AG Race

Boston Globe – Andrea Campbell cruised to victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary election for Massachusetts attorney general, putting her on the path to make history as the first Black woman to hold the state’s top law enforcement post.

Campbell, the first Black woman elected president of the Boston City Council, successfully fended off a late $9 million spending blitz by her wealthy opponent, workers-rights litigator Shannon Liss-Riordan, who had been riding a recent wave of support that helped her surge in the polls and put the race at a dead heat leading into Tuesday. But as the votes poured in Tuesday night, Campbell appeared to have had a commanding victory: She won roughly 70 percent of the vote in Boston, according to unofficial election results.Supporters broke out in cheers at Campbell’s watch party at the ReelHouse Marina Bay in Quincy, as TV screens showed that the Associated Press called the race for Campbell just before 10 p.m., less than two hours after polls closed. But the initial announcement seemed to catch people by surprise. Louder, more confident cheers broke out the second time the screen showed the red check mark next to Campbell’s name.

Soon after, Campbell arrived to thunderous applause and cheers, and chants of “A.C. for AG.”

Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll Wins Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor

Boston Globe – Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, who parlayed decades of municipal experience and deep relationships with local officials into a strong victory, will join gubernatorial nominee Maura Healey leading the Democratic ticket after winning the Democratic nomination for Massachusetts lieutenant governor Tuesday night.

The voter-arranged partnership sets the two college basketball players — Healey was a point guard at Harvard University and Driscoll played at Salem State — on a nine-week sprint to Election Day, when they could make national history.

“We won, and we won big. Here in Massachusetts, we are a home of firsts. … We will have the first governor and lieutenant governor on an all-woman ticket,” an ebullient Driscoll told supporters at Colonial Hall at Rockafellas restaurant in downtown Salem. “Not one, but two women in the corner office,” a feat no state has yet achieved.

With about 56 percent of votes in, Driscoll led state Senator Eric P. Lesser and state Representative Tami Gouveia, about 45 to 35 to 19 percent. The Associated Press called the race for Driscoll Tuesday night.

Business

How Have Average Weekly Earnings Changed?

MassLive – The Boston metro area is the highest-earning in the state, while Lynn and New Bedford are approximately tied for the lowest-earning spot, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average weekly earnings for the Boston, Cambridge and Newton metro area was $1,573 as of July. The average for Lynn, Saugus and Marblehead was $884.27 and the average for New Bedford was $885.62.

In Worcester, the average weekly earnings were $1,102.14, while in Springfield, the median of the data set, the average was $1,033.94.

Interest High in Sports-Betting Licenses

Boston Herald – There are at least 42 companies that plan to apply for a sports-betting license in Massachusetts, giving the Gaming Commission the first indication of the work ahead as it prepares to launch an application and licensing process.

The commission asked in mid-August that any entity interested in seeking a license submit a non-binding notice of intent form by Wednesday to establish a point of contact between the regulators and the companies that could make up a newly legal industry here.

The commission said Thursday that 42 companies submitted a form, though a submission is not required to eventually apply for a license.

Some of the companies on the list were already known since the state’s two casinos, two simulcast centers and one slots parlor have already met with the commission to detail their initial plans for offering legal wagering here.

Other companies run the gamut from those with traditional casino gambling ties like Caesars Sportsbook, Bally’s Interactive, Rush Street Interactive and Seminole Hard Rock Digital, to newer players in what is becoming more of a digital industry, including DraftKings, FanDuel, BetFanatics, FanLogic and more.

In addition to the in-person betting licenses and mobile partnerships available to the existing state’s gaming centers, the Gaming Commission can also issue up to seven Category 3 licenses that would allow a company to take wagers through a mobile or digital platform.

The commission said it plans to hold a roundtable with companies interested in the Category 3 licenses similar to the one it held with its existing licensees.

CDC Recommends Updated COVID Boosters

Boston Globe – New COVID-19 boosters that target today’s most common omicron strains began this week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the updated shots Thursday.

The decision by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky came shortly after the agency’s advisers said if enough people roll up their sleeves, the shots could blunt a winter surge.

“They can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination and were designed to provide broader protection,” she said in a statement.

The tweaked shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna offer Americans a chance to get the most up-to-date protection at yet another critical period in the pandemic. They’re combination or “bivalent” shots — half the original vaccine and half protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions now causing nearly all COVID-19 infections.

The CDC’s advisers struggled with who should get the new booster and when because only a similarly tweaked vaccine, not the exact recipe, has been studied in people so far.

But ultimately the panel deemed it the best option considering the U.S. still is experiencing tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases and about 500 deaths every day — even before an expected new winter wave.

“I think they’re going to be an effective tool for disease prevention this fall and into the winter,” said CDC adviser Dr. Matthew Daley of Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

Boston’s Office Market Softens as Economy Wobbles

Boston Globe – Demand for office space in Boston is still a fraction of what it was pre-pandemic, according to a new analysis from real estate software company VTS.

VTS tracks and analyzes office tour requirements from potential tenants in major cities across the US. The firm found demand in Boston in July fell 26 percent from the month prior and remains 34 percent below rates before the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a broader embrace of remote work. Nationally, VTS’ office demand index dropped 17.5 percent in July to its lowest level since February 2021.

“We’re used to seeing demand for office space cool in summer months, but not at this rate,” said Nick Romito, CEO of VTS, in a statement. “Unique to 2022 is an economic outlook that is continually shifting and is likely contributing to a reduction in new office demand, as uncertainty causes some potential tenants to delay or reconsider their current office space needs.”

The Federal Reserve hiking its benchmark interest rate to the highest level since 2018 — in an effort to combat inflation — has a particular impact on markets with a heavier concentration of office tenants in the finance, insurance, and real estate industries, VTS says, including Boston, Chicago, and New York. But on the flip side, there were strong national job growth figures in July — including in office-using industries like financial and professional services. The US economy also added 315,000 jobs in August, with professional and business services leading the increase.

Wu Administration Backs Effort to Streamline Marijuana Licensing in Boston

Boston Globe – Since the spring of 2020, marijuana companies trying to open facilities in Boston have been required to win approval from two separate city agencies: the relatively new Boston Cannabis Board and the Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA).

Now, Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration is throwing its weight behind an effort to streamline pot licensing by shifting nearly all authority to the seven-member cannabis board, part of its broader push to simplify the process of starting up a small business in the city.

Wu officials at a public hearing this week said the changes, first proposed by former city councilor Lydia Edwards, would make marijuana licensing faster and more predictable for applicants and neighbors.

“It’s a very extensive permitting and licensing process that takes years and is very cumbersome and challenging for people to get through,” said Bryan Glascock, a deputy director at the Boston Planning and Development Agency, which convened the meeting. “We feel like the time is right to phase the zoning piece out of it and let the [cannabis board] do what it does best.”

But the proposal was met with skepticism by a number of neighborhood groups and city councilors Kenzie Bok and Michael Flaherty, who said it would weaken consideration of concerns raised by residents living near proposed marijuana facilities — especially in mixed commercial-residential districts where most businesses must win ZBA permission to open.

Critics urged the planning agency to leave the ZBA in charge of siting marijuana firms and awarding exceptions to Boston’s required half-mile buffer between cannabis facilities. (The buffer was intended to prevent clusters of pot shops, but the city’s geography means officials will need to allow some marijuana retailers closer to one another to meet a state minimum of around 52 recreational shops.)

“A lot of folks voted for [legal marijuana] but don’t necessarily want it in their neighborhood,” Flaherty testified, adding that Boston must ensure “no one neighborhood is overrun by cannabis cafes and pot shops.”

Labor Secretary Walsh on Remote Work: Flexibility is Key

Politico – Marty Walsh sounds a bit sheepish when recalling his opening days as Secretary of Labor. The pandemic was still underway in March of 2021, but vaccines were just starting to become commonplace.

Contemplating the empty hallways of the Frances Perkins Building, Walsh found himself impatient.

“I’ll be completely honest,” Walsh said in a recent interview. “I’m a guy that was thinking everyone should be back in the office here at DOL, you know, right away.”

He wanted to build an action-oriented culture to support his agenda, with an emphasis on worker training to improve skills for people with lower education or facing historic discrimination. The only way to do that was sitting in the same room, face to face, “because that’s the way it had always been.” He asked himself, “How can you build culture on the TV and on a [computer] screen and all this stuff?”

Eighteen months later, Walsh is still asking that question. But the context is different, and so are some of his answers. “I’m not necessarily right — I was wrong in some cases,” he concluded. He’s become a sympathizer — with qualifications, cautionary notes and, above all, a commitment to flexibility by both employer and employee — to remote work in many contexts.

Walsh, 55, was the mayor of Boston when the pandemic started in late winter 2020, and acknowledges it took him a while to reckon with the implications. Now, he holds the Biden administration’s top labor job at a moment when the American workforce — employees and managers alike — is grappling with the largest change in the nature of work in generations.

The Covid-driven changes flowed from improvisation in the moment rather than any grand design. Yet the consequences — the pervasiveness of work-from-home even as most people are now traveling and socializing again, the uncertain future of American downtowns, the challenge of creating shared purpose when separated by physical distance — are no less seismic. Working remotely has gone from being a case-by-case exception to being a commonplace expectation in many sectors of the economy. Some employers who have tried to lay down the law about a mandatory return to the office have found, in a tight job market, employees laying down the law in return.

Taxation and Budget

Baker Files Plan to Return Nearly $3 Billion to Taxpayers Using 1986 Law

CBS News – Gov. Charlie Baker took another step on Wednesday to return nearly $3 billion to Massachusetts taxpayers using an obscure law.

The governor filed a supplemental budget with the Legislature addressing the state surplus that projects to be $2.3 billion.

“This surplus figure accounts for $2.941 billion in refunds that will be returned to taxpayers under Chapter 62F, the state law that requires net state tax revenues that exceed allowable revenues be returned to taxpayers,” Baker’s office said in a statement.

The state’s Department of Revenue submitted that figure Wednesday to the State Auditor, who will make a final determination by September 20 on sending money back to taxpayers.

Chapter 62F, a ballot question approved by voters in 1986, allows for tax rebates when the state budget is overflowing. For you, that means about 7% of your 2021 income taxes being returned, depending on which credits you already used.

“This is really unprecedented increases in tax revenue which is really what this thing was designed to do to make sure the people of Massachusetts participated in that windfall,” Baker said back in July.

A separate $4 billion economic development bill, which included $250 “relief rebates” for taxpayers who made between $38,000 and $100,000 last year, was put on hold because legislators wanted to see how 62F would play out.

MBTA Board Approves $811 Million Contract for 102 New Green Line Supercars

Commonwealth Magazine – The MBTA board of directors on Wednesday approved an $811 million contract to purchase 102 new Green Line vehicles that are each capable of carrying as many passengers as the 1980s-vintage, two-car trains they are replacing.

The new supercars are expected to start arriving in the spring of 2027 with the last car’s delivery set for 2031. The vehicles have flat floors, eliminating the steps of the current vehicles, and can be driven by one driver instead of the current two.

Separately, MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak told the board that Orange Line repairs are proceeding on schedule and explained why the month-long shutdown of the line was rushed out quickly. He also dismissed rumors that the entire Red Line will be shut down this winter but warned that partial shutdowns of lines will probably happen somewhat frequently going forward.

The new Green Line cars are manufactured by CAF USA, a subsidiary of a Spanish company of the same name. CAF builds its vehicles in Spain and assembles them in the US at a plant in Elmira, New York. CAF is the same company that built the 24 Green Line cars purchased for the Green Line expansion into Medford and Somerville.

The supercars are 114 feet long, while the Green Line vehicles they are replacing are each 74 feet long.

Jeffrey Gonneville, the deputy general manager of the MBTA, said the supercars mark a major move into the future for the Green Line and will complement the new vehicles on the Red and Orange Lines.

On a day when the Federal Transit Administration released a report suggesting the MBTA is too fixated on big-ticket infrastructure projects and vehicle contracts and not focused enough on operations and maintenance, board member Travis McCready said it’s not an either-or situation for the T.

T officials said the major capital expenditure for new Green Line vehicles will promote safety by replacing old vehicles with dated technology with new ones that have more safety features and do away with steps that can be dangerous for passengers.

Health Care

What Does New Data Tell Us about Abortions in Massachusetts?

WGBH – Even before the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the constitutional right to abortion in June, abortion providers in Massachusetts had been seeing more out-of-state patients.

That’s one of the main takeaways from new data on abortion in Massachusetts, which the state released in August. The numbers detail how many abortions were performed here in 2021 and break down information about the women who ended their pregnancies.

GBH News spoke with abortion advocates and experts about what the data can say — and what it can’t — about the state of abortion in Massachusetts.

As individual states ban or heavily restrict abortions, experts have expected women in those states to cross borders and get abortions where it’s more easily accessible. Massachusetts providers said that was already happening before Roe v. Wade was reversed, and an uptick in 2021 adds another piece of evidence to the mix.

“2021 would have been the start of beginning to see some people trickle in from Texas,” said Margaret Batten, who sits on the board at the Jane Fund and Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund, which help patients pay for abortions.

Abortions on out-of-state residents in 2021 hit the highest level since 2003.

Following the September 2021 implementation of the so-called “heartbeat bill” in Texas, which prohibits abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy, providers saw more patients traveling from the state to get an abortion in Massachusetts. “That’s usually somebody who is from Massachusetts originally, or maybe their best friend lives in Massachusetts,” said Reproductive Equity Now’s executive director Rebecca Hart Holder. In other words, most of these out-of-state patients already had ties to Massachusetts.

Ten Years after Landmark Health-Care Law, the Push to Contain Costs May be Stalling

WBUR – Ten years ago, as medical costs soared, Massachusetts passed landmark legislation to tackle the problem.

The law created the Health Policy Commission, a first-of-its-kind watchdog agency to monitor rising costs. And it set a target to limit spending growth.

A decade later, that experiment in cost control has had mixed success. Health care spending has grown less rapidly — yet consumers and businesses are still grappling with higher costs each year.

Now, many health industry insiders and observers say, progress is stalling. They say the Health Policy Commission needs more power to hold the industry accountable for high spending and make care more affordable for all.

Leaders of the commission, too, argue they need more authority, such as the ability to impose bigger fines on providers and insurers that exceed spending targets.

“We have absolutely made significant progress in slowing the growth of health care costs. But there is a lot of work left to do,” said David Seltz, executive director of the Health Policy Commission since it was established in 2012.

“We need to continue to put the pressure on bringing spending growth down,” he said, “but also ensuring that health insurance companies are passing those savings along to consumers in the form that people feel: premiums, co-pays, deductibles.”

Sustainability, Climate and Energy

As Wealthy Towns Go Electric, Who Will pick up the Tab for Aging Gas Infrastructure?

Energy News – As the first Massachusetts cities and towns prepare to ban new residential fossil fuel systems, some advocates say now is the time to create a long-term strategy to make sure lower-income residents aren’t left to pay for a sprawling and aging natural gas system they can’t afford to opt out of.

“Absent a policy intervention, our most vulnerable consumers could be left holding the bag,” said Michael Colvin, director of regulatory and legislative affairs with the Environmental Defense Fund.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker last month signed a sweeping new climate bill that includes authorization for up to 10 towns and cities to ban the use of fossil fuels in new construction or in substantial remodeling projects, as long as at least 10% of the housing units in the municipality qualify as affordable. New homes would not be allowed to install oil or propane tanks or use natural gas for heating or cooking.

The provision allowing the bans is the result of a long campaign dating back to at least 2019, when the town of Brookline instituted such a prohibition only to have its regulation struck down by the state attorney general’s office. Following that defeat, Brookline and several other towns and cities petitioned the state legislature for the right to make their own rules on this question. The new climate law is lawmakers’ response, allowing a limited number of towns to serve as de facto pilot programs for these bans.

Advocates Push Restrictions on Biomass

Dig Boston – Clean-energy advocates are hopeful Massachusetts’ leadership on fighting biomass pollution will drive change in other states and nations. The Bay State recently became the first in the U.S. to end renewable-energy subsidies for electricity from wood-burning biomass power plants as part of a new climate law.

Laura Haight, U.S. policy director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity, explained there is a mounting body of science showing woody biomass is bad for the climate and has serious health concerns.

“The communities where these biomass power plants are built are frequently low-income communities of color with elevated health burdens, high rates of asthma and other health-related issues because they’re inhaling smoke,” Haight pointed out. “This is not healthy air that comes out of the stacks.”

Haight noted this is not the first time Massachusetts has taken the lead on climate action. It was one of the first states to set economywide greenhouse-gas emission reduction goals, and to create a Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard requiring a certain percentage of the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy.

Back in 2012, Massachusetts adopted strict criteria for efficiency and fuels at wood-burning biomass power plants qualifying for the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard. However, Haight said in 2019, Gov. Charlie Baker pushed a proposal which would weaken restrictions and allow polluting power plants from Maine and New Hampshire to sell renewable-energy credits here.

“Ratepayers subsidize these renewable-energy credits,” Haight emphasized. “The expectation is that extra money will go towards clean energy, not something that’s more polluting than fossil fuels.”

Haight argued other laws need to be changed in Massachusetts to prevent burning wood from being subsidized as either clean energy or clean heat. She is hopeful the next governor will be more responsive to the public’s concerns.

Europe’s Odds of Dodging Natural-Gas Shortage Hinge on Winter Weather

Wall Street Journal – With Russia cutting natural gas deliveries to Europe, companies and governments have stockpiled the fuel, reduced consumption and diversified supplies, but whether they run out of the stuff this winter might hinge on one imponderable variable: the weather.

An unexpectedly harsh and long winter, though, would increase gas demand for heating and could lead governments to ration gas, hobbling Europe’s already fragile economy. Wind and rain will also determine how much electricity European nations can produce from cheap renewable sources.

The weather has played a central part in past military conflicts—a lull in bad weather allowed D-Day to go ahead on June 6, 1944, instead of being delayed by two weeks; cold temperatures helped defeat both Napoleon’s and Hitler’s invasions of Russia. In the economic war now opposing the Kremlin and the West, the weather will be key in deciding whether Europe runs out of natural gas this winter and how much damage high power prices will inflict on its economy.

Ahead of the winter, companies from fertilizer plants to smelters have reduced production and officials have urged citizens to conserve energy by lowering thermostats and taking shorter showers.

“The weather will be crucial,” said Henning Gloystein, director of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia consulting firm. “A mild winter would make things a lot easier and probably mean most of the European Union could live entirely without Russian gas and without energy usage restrictions.”

“A long and cold winter, by contrast, may force governments into stricter rationing,” he said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, disruptions have wreaked havoc on Europe’s energy markets. Russia has been reducing gas flows to Europe since the spring in what Western officials have called an economic attack to punish Europe for its support of Ukraine. On Friday, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom said it would indefinitely suspend the key Nord Stream pipeline to Germany.

Supply disruptions in the U.S. have hit exports of liquefied natural gas that Europe has banked on to diversify away from its longtime dependency on Moscow’s energy. Droughts, meanwhile, have reduced hydropower generation just as outages at French nuclear plants have scrambled electricity markets.

Now, a lot is riding on the weather.

“We won’t be lacking gas unless we need a lot more of it because the weather is extremely cold and our electricity production from sources other than gas is weak,” said Catherine MacGregor, chief executive of French energy company Engie SA.

The European Commission said in July that an unusually cold winter would increase the risk of further drastic reductions of gas storage.

Energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie said that weather is the biggest risk this season. An unusually cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it calculates, could reduce European gas inventories to 4% of total capacity by March from over 80% now.

The troubles would carry into next winter, with Europe only able to fill up its gas stores to 63% of their capacity before temperatures fall again next fall, Wood Mackenzie said, adding that such a scenario would force governments to ration gas.

A mild fall and winter would have the opposite effect. That is because European utilities and governments typically fill up their gas stores during summer when demand is lower and then withdraw from them in the colder winter months. Higher temperatures could push those withdrawals further down the line.

This year, Europe has been filling its gas storage facilities at a breakneck pace. EU-wide, gas reserves have reached 80% of total capacity, a goal initially set by the EU for Nov. 1. Germany, which has Europe’s largest gas storage facilities, has hit its 85% goal a month early.

Longer-term weather forecasts come with high levels of uncertainty. Global weather is a complex system, influenced by many chaotic factors including pressure anomalies, precipitation and wind.

“Even in a mild winter, there can be brief cold phases,” said Dominik Jung, managing director at Germany-based weather-forecasting service Q.met GmbH, which works with energy companies and utilities.

So far, though, his and others’ predictions are for a mild start of the winter, with Mr. Jung predicting this winter will be 1.5 to 3.5 F warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average.

“Currently I am relaxed about the situation in winter,” he said. “Given the current trend, I don’t see extremely high gas consumption.”

Alexandre Fierro, senior meteorologist at commodity broker Marex, said weather is expected to be mostly warmer and drier until December compared with the long-term average. Forecasting service AccuWeather expects European temperatures this autumn to be 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, or around 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit, above normal.

Such small deviations in temperatures are significant for gas demand. S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates that an increase of 1 degree Celsius can reduce gas demand during the winter months by 6% in Germany and the U.K.

Conversely, a cold winter could lead to a 5% increase in gas demand in Europe, Fitch Ratings estimates. That would make it hard for the EU to reach its voluntary target of reducing gas demand by 15%.

Last winter, Europe benefited from warmer temperatures. As gas storage levels were historically low, Germany would have been at risk of running out of gas had it not been for the mild winter, Eurasia’s Mr. Gloystein said.

“That highlights the risks this winter, should it get nippy,” he said.

One wild card is the La Niña pattern this winter. Known as the cool sister of the better-known El Niño, the weather phenomenon occurs every few years and refers to the cooling of ocean surface temperatures. AccuWeather said that due to this season’s La Niña, the winter is going to be more volatile with more swings in terms of temperatures and storms.

Warmer weather in the autumn months comes with some drawbacks. It could prolong Europe’s drought, which is estimated to be the worst in 500 years in some places. The lack of rain has caused hydropower generation to drop 20% compared with last year. The low level of the Rhine River has also affected the shipping of coal to power plants, said Carlos Torres Diaz, head of power at Rystad Energy consulting firm.

“Should the forecast mild weather materialize, it will bring some relief to the power sector, but pricing will continue to be impacted by other factors,” Mr. Diaz said.

Europe’s Energy-Crisis Relief Measures Come with High Risks Attached

Wall Street Journal – European governments are increasing spending to shield households from surging energy prices driven by Russia’s economic war, but that comes amid rising borrowing costs and mounting investor unease about swelling sovereign debt in some countries.

To date, the European Union’s five largest economies have announced support for households, and less costly help for businesses, totaling €203 billion, around $201 billion.

The measures might keep millions of people from sliding into poverty—and thousands of businesses from going bust—as energy bills soar, cushioning the crisis’s impact on the economy and, governments hope, backstopping political support for Ukraine. Some measures, such as price caps for power and natural gas, could also help central banks to fight inflation.

But they also come with risks: If they discourage recipients from cutting their gas consumption, that could lead to shortages of the fuel late this winter. And while the supporting measures aren’t yet on a par with the Covid-19 bailouts of the past two years, they are adding to government debt at a time when investors are demanding higher interest to finance budget deficits already swollen by pandemic-era spending.

Some of this aid comes in the shape of caps on energy prices, or cuts in energy taxes, which economists say could encourage higher natural- gas and power consumption, possibly leading to a shortfall of both early next year and rationing or blackouts.

“That’s exactly the wrong kind of thing to do,” said Benjamin Moll, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. While help should be provided to hard-pressed households, it should come in ways that “are not directly tied to gas consumption,” he added.

In an analysis published Tuesday, the Brussels-based Bruegel research body said that while wholesale energy prices during the first six months of this year were around 10 times their average level, household consumption in the EU fell by just 7%, largely because home-energy prices had been capped.

Germany’s government Sunday announced its third package of measures to help shield households from surging energy costs, bringing total help so far to €95 billion. The measures include a price cap on electricity; a cut in the value-added tax on natural gas; the postponement of a rise in carbon emissions prices for one year; one-off payments to pensioners and students, and other smaller measures.

At €65 billion, the cost of the package is much larger than the first two, reflecting the larger scale of expected rises in energy prices. While the announcement had been in the works for weeks, it came just a day after Russia suspended virtually all gas deliveries to Germany in retaliation for western sanctions against Moscow and support for Ukraine.

So far, economists at UBS estimate that the combined cost of the German aid packages is worth 2.7% of annual economic output. By comparison, the International Monetary Fund estimated last year that additional spending and revenues foregone by Berlin during the pandemic at 15.3% of gross domestic product, not counting loans, guarantees and equity investments worth another 27.8% of output.

France’s price cap and grants to vulnerable households so far amount to about 1.8% of GDP, UBS estimates. In Italy, the cost of similar measures is estimated at 2.4% of annual output, and 1.25% of GDP in Spain.

Pandemic support cost the French government 9.6% of GDP, the Italian government 10.9% and the Spanish government 8.4%, in addition to loans and guarantees that were a lot larger.

Despite this, bond investors are bracing for a ramp-up in government spending, an expectation that is helping drive up benchmark government borrowing costs across Europe and making it more expensive for governments to borrow their way out of the crisis.

Germany’s benchmark 10-year government bond yield has more than doubled in the past month, to 1.567% Wednesday from 0.71% at the start of August. France’s borrowing costs recently topped 2% and Italy’s are closing in on 4%—all part of the costs of Russia’s economic assault on the continent that has forced the European Central Bank to pick up the pace of interest-rate increases to contain inflation.

While investors expect more bond issuance, there are no signs in the market that they are beginning to question governments’ ability to repay their debts. The EU is discussing introducing a windfall tax on energy producers to help fund aid for the broader economy. Germany has said its spending won’t exceed its constitutional debt brake that limits new borrowing at 0.35% of gross domestic product.

“This latest round of fiscal support doesn’t necessarily constitute a sustainability concern, certainly for the core European countries which for a long time have had fiscal surpluses,” said Gaurav Saroliya, a portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors.

But Mr. Saroliya is among investors growing increasingly worried about Britain’s benchmark borrowing costs that surged above 3% on Tuesday for the first time since 2014 as markets assessed the U.K.’s spending plans.

Under new Prime Minister Liz Truss, the U.K. government has signaled it will soon announce its own cap on prices at an estimated cost of around £100 billion, equivalent to about $114.31 billion. That would be larger than the £70 billion spent on the furlough scheme that helped 11.7 million workers during the pandemic but roughly a quarter of the overall cost of Covid-19 to the government.

Heightened concerns over Britain’s spending plans are reflected in the diverging borrowing costs for the U.K. and Germany. The U.K. government’s benchmark borrowing costs are now 1.5 percentage point above those of Germany, the largest difference since 2015.

“The initial state of U.K. public finances has not been exemplary,” said Mr. Saroliya. “We have a degree of nervousness not just about issuance outlook, but the scope of volatility.”

Economists think rationing would cause large-scale closures of businesses triggering a deep economic contraction over the winter months.

One positive aspect of price caps is that they could help push down inflation. Speaking to lawmakers Wednesday, Bank of England chief economist, Huw Pill, said the signaled price cap would “lower headline inflation relative to what we were forecasting.”

For the U.K., economists at Barclays estimate that the annual rate of inflation might already have peaked at 10.1% in July if household energy prices are frozen at April levels. That would reduce the need for significant rises in the Bank of England’s key interest rate.

“By capping energy prices, the government would provide much welcome help to the BoE in regaining control over inflation dynamics,” Barclays economists wrote in a note to clients. “Prolonged hikes into next year are now less likely, in our view.”

With Region in Drought, Heavy Rains Bring only a Measure of Relief, Experts Say

Boston Globe – With the area locked in severe drought for much of the summer, this week’s heavy rain felt restorative, a desperately needed respite for dusty trails and dried-up rivers.

But after months of hot, dry weather, even a storm strong enough to cause flooding across Rhode Island the past two days only offers a measure of relief, experts said Tuesday. In Massachusetts, which has faced water shortages, crop damage, and brush fires for weeks, even downpours are just a drop in the bucket.

“The problem when you have a big rain event is that a lot runs off,” said Bill Simpson, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “If you have 5 inches over the course of a month, it allows it to percolate into the soil. The rainfall numbers might be misleading.”

Boom and bust cycles — extreme drought punctuated by flooding — will likely become a more familiar pattern in New England as climate change intensifies, experts say. Higher temperatures speed up evaporation rates and dry out soil, making it less capable of soaking up the rain when it comes. As rain becomes more sporadic, it provides less benefit.

“Unfortunately, the overall impact will be minimal,” Simpson said of this week’s torrential rains.

While precipitation used to fall steadily over the course of a few weeks, it’s increasingly common for a lot of rain to fall at once. Michael Rawlins, associate director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said that since the 1950s, there has been a 70 percent increase in the number of days that New England sees extreme levels of precipitation.

“That’s a clear fingerprint of a warming world,” he said.

Nearly all of Massachusetts is experiencing severe drought conditions, with 38 percent of the state under extreme drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. Extreme drought is the monitor’s second most dire category, behind only exceptional drought.

In Rhode Island, which had the second-driest July in its recorded history, Monday’s rains flooded parts of Interstate 95 in Providence, leaving some drivers stranded for hours, and deluged Cranston with 10 inches of precipitation.

The drainage system was not blocked, officials said, but like the region as a whole, simply unable to handle so much rain in so little time.

“The rain came down at an intensity that exceeded its capacity to accept it,” Rhode Island Department of Transportation director Peter Alviti said.

On Tuesday, heavy rains pounded parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, prompting flood watches that lasted for several hours. National Weather Service meteorologist Torry Gaucher said the heavy rains were clearly beneficial and would “go a long ways in helping to reverse some of the drought.” But for trees and other vegetation stressed by the lack of water, it may have arrived too late.

“Those things are kind of irreversible at this point,’’ he said.

As rain continued to fall Tuesday, cities and towns across Rhode Island took stock of the damage. In Cranston, Anthony Moretti, chief of staff to Mayor Ken Hopkins, said flooding had mostly subsided and things were under control.

“So far, so good,” Moretti said. “The city’s prepared should any more flooding occur.”

The state Department of Environmental Management was monitoring the state’s waste-water treatment facilities, said spokesman Michael Healey. Staff estimated that several thousand gallons of untreated storm water were discharged during the storm but said it would be hard to determine the exact amount.

In Providence, Mayor Jorge Elorza defended his administration’s response to the storm after mayoral candidate Brett Smiley, on the ballot in next week’s Democratic primary, said the city was ill-prepared for the deluge.

“Today, after intense rains across the city, we saw our city infrastructure fail us,” Smiley tweeted. “Decades of underfunding, faulty repairs by the city and by vendors and years of inconsistent maintenance have resulted in deteriorating infrastructure right in our neighborhoods.”

Elorza, who is term-limited and not on the primary ballot, said damage to one street that Smiley referenced was caused by a burst road patch installed by Providence Water, not a third-party city vendor. The patch was within a 90-day “settling period,” meaning it was too soon for a permanent replacement, Elorza said.

The patch, or a temporary cover to accommodate lead service before final patchwork is installed, was within a 90-day “settling period,” meaning it was too soon for a permanent replacement, Elorza said.

“Yesterday’s burst patch and resulting road damage were plainly not a result of sloppy vendors, bad planning, or faulty execution,” Elorza said. “Given the massive amount of flash rain, it is amazing and we were quite fortunate that more similar incidents did not occur.”

About 30 students at Brown University were displaced after their dorms flooded, according to ABC6. A university spokesperson told the local TV station that the first floor of a residence hall was impacted. A building at 215 Peace St. collapsed during the storm Monday; the building was not occupied and no one was hurt, police said.

Smithfield also saw significant rain, causing two roadway closures in the Greenville section of town. About a dozen residents had their basements flooded, said Todd Manni, director of emergency management and community outreach.

No injuries were reported, but at least two vehicles tried to drive through flood water, either before emergency crews got there or by driving around barricades, Manni said.

Town officials were monitoring the Woonasquatucket River, which was in minor flood stage at just under 6 feet Tuesday morning, Manni said. Its high mark came during the March 2010 flood when it rose to over 9 feet, Manni said.

“Our messaging today is first, never drive through flooded roadways, and second, if you live or work in a flood-prone area, remain vigilant and aware of dangerous conditions due to rising water since rainfall is forecast to continue throughout most of today,” Manni said Tuesday. “In the unlikely chance an evacuation order is issued, do so without delay.”

Clean Energy Projects Surge After Climate Bill Passage

New York Times – In the weeks since President Biden signed a comprehensive climate bill devised to spur investment in electric cars and clean energy, corporations have announced a series of big-ticket projects to produce the kind of technology the legislation aims to promote.

Toyota said it would invest an additional $2.5 billion in a factory in North Carolina to produce batteries for electric cars and hybrids. Honda and LG Energy Solution announced a joint venture to build a $4.4 billion battery factory at a location to be named.

Piedmont Lithium, a mining company, said it would build a plant in Tennessee to process lithium for batteries, helping to ease America’s dependence on Chinese refineries — a key aim of the Biden administration. First Solar, a big solar panel manufacturer, said it would invest up to $1.2 billion to build its fourth factory in the United States, probably somewhere in the Southeast, largely because of renewable energy incentives in the climate bill.

But those projects, announced last week, also illustrate how much work remains to be done. Factories take time to build, and until then electric vehicles are likely to remain scarce and expensive. Toyota’s factory in North Carolina and Honda’s venture with LG will not produce batteries until 2025.

Some of the projects were in the works before the federal legislation passed, and before California added an extra push by banning sales of new gasoline cars by 2035. The big climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, is the latest in a series of policy moves and geopolitical developments that have pushed automakers and suppliers to invest in the United States. The trade war with China, disruption of supply chains by the pandemic, changes in free-trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, and the bipartisan infrastructure law last year have all had a powerful impact on where companies decide to build factories.

The timing of Toyota’s announcement, two weeks after Mr. Biden signed the climate law, was a coincidence, said Norm Bafunno, a senior vice president at Toyota Motor North America whose responsibilities include the North Carolina plant.

But he added that the legislation could be a “catalyst for our domestic battery production.” And he said Toyota was working hard to fulfill provisions of the bill that encourage companies to get raw materials and components for batteries from the United States and its trade allies.

At a time of economic uncertainty, the legislation gives companies more confidence that they can earn a return on their bets. The investments serve as affirmation of political leaders’ intent: to further accelerate America’s transition away from fossil fuels and to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, especially those in China.

Even with the $369 billion in direct funding, loans and loan guarantees that the Inflation Reduction Act will pump into corporations, consumers and states, slashing greenhouse gas emissions remains a challenge, analysts and industry representatives say.

For example, money alone won’t eliminate some of the main hurdles to upgrading long-distance transmission lines and distribution equipment that will be needed to get power from solar and wind farms to homes and businesses. Winning approval for such projects can be laborious and prickly because so much land is affected.

Transmission projects are a big part of the Biden administration’s plan, because they will be needed to carry solar and wind power from regions that produce it to areas that want clean energy. Mr. Biden would like to see thousands of turbines generating electricity off the East Coast and West Coast, requiring significant investments in power lines.

“We need to be able to build infrastructure in this country to meet clean energy and climate goals,” said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a company that aims to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by the electric grid through use of clean energy. Transmission, he said, “is the key to wind and solar growth, which in turn are key to decarbonizing transportation and building heating.”

But landowners, environmentalists and businesses have raised concerns about offshore wind farms near fisheries and power lines that cross farmland.

“The local issue and the state issue and the biggest challenge that we would have is building the transmission lines through the farmland,” said State Senator Sue Rezin, an Illinois Republican who sits on an energy task force with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “And I support the farmers, period.”

After the huge victory for the clean energy industry, organizations like the Solar Energy Industry Association plan to focus more on selling the merits of clean energy projects to people affected by them.

“We’ve always known there was going to be this next stage of challenges,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, the president of the association. “I think there’s a fair amount of education to be done.”

Raw materials for batteries are another big concern. The bill contains numerous provisions designed to encourage automakers and battery makers to buy lithium, nickel and other key raw materials from suppliers in North America or from the United States’ trade allies.

Only one mine in the United States is producing lithium, a site in Silver Peak, Nev., operated by Albemarle, a mining company based in Charlotte, N.C. The mine’s output amounts to a tiny percentage of the domestic auto industry’s demand, and the lithium must be sent overseas to be refined to battery-grade material.

Money from the bill will help finance Albemarle’s plans to establish refineries in the United States and develop more mines while also encouraging sales of electric vehicles and spurring overall demand for lithium, said Ellen Lenny-Pessagno, vice president for government and community affairs for Albemarle.

“It’s an incredibly positive step forward,” she said of the legislation.

The climate package has faced criticism from some industry groups that say very few electric vehicles will qualify for $7,500 tax credits because so many strings are attached. The law sets standards, which grow more stringent over time, for how much of a battery’s components and raw materials must come from the United States or its trade allies.

While it may take a few years for automakers to adjust their supply chains and comply with the requirements, once they do, electric vehicles could become cheaper to buy than gasoline cars. In addition to the $7,500 tax credits, the law provides financial incentives worth thousands of dollars to automakers that use U.S.-made batteries. If carmakers pass on all of the savings to buyers, a $50,000 electric car would cost much less than $40,000 to buy, or less than the average new car in the United States.

The climate law “is dangling some very serious carrots,” Mr. Chan of Roland Berger said. “If it takes a few years to develop the supply chain, that is well within the intent of the law.”

Still, the onus is also on automakers to make electric vehicles affordable, Mr. Bafunno of Toyota said. While demand for battery-powered cars is high, so are prices. An electric vehicle costs about $16,000 more than a comparable gasoline model, Mr. Bafunno said.

“Is that sustainable over time for everyone?” he said. “We certainly think no. We have to reduce costs to get them to be equivalent. And that’s going to take time.”

California Narrowly Averts Electricity Crisis Amid Scorching Heat

New York Times — Wildfires raged at both ends of California. Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, warned of “unprecedented” heat. The power grid teetered on the brink of outages into the evening.

But as California endured its sixth day under a ferocious heat dome, the nation’s most populous state narrowly managed to avert rolling blackouts, even as temperature and energy use records shattered on Tuesday and power grid officials begged homeowners to turn down their air conditioning.

The mere maintenance of electricity in most of the state was celebrated as a minor triumph after California’s Independent System Operator, which manages most of the state’s grid, issued a “Level 3” emergency alert earlier in the evening, a sign that outages were imminent.

By then Sacramento, the state capital, had reached a suffocating 116 degrees, its highest-ever recorded temperature, prompting soccer leagues to cancel practices, gardeners to stop working at noon and schools to keep students indoors during recess.

“I’ve been here for 30 years, and I can’t remember it ever being this hot this many days in a row,” said Jeff Williamson, 53, a commercial roofing contractor who was standing outside a Sacramento coffee shop as a blinding sun drove the morning air toward 90 degrees before breakfast. The sky was so blue that the very atmosphere seemed stripped of a layer.

“You can taste it,” Mr. Williamson said. “People say it’s a dry heat. Well, so’s an open flame.”

After a scorching Labor Day weekend that fueled deadly wildfires and freakish desert downpours, temperatures soared even higher on Tuesday. About 42 million Americans were under excessive heat warnings, including those in parts of Nevada and Arizona, with red-flag fire conditions covering the Pacific Northwest, Montana and Idaho.

Fresno broke a century-old record for the day, hitting 114 degrees. Santa Rosa in Wine Country hit 115 degrees, another record. Livermore hit 116 degrees, matching a record set Monday. To the north, the city of Ukiah shattered its record, reaching 117 degrees. Even some neighborhoods in reliably cool San Francisco flirted with triple digits.

Throughout the day, state officials pleaded desperately for conservation. Strategic blackouts are integral to managing the grid, allowing the state to preserve energy supplies when demand soars. Utilities cut power to designated neighborhoods and regions for a set period of time, trying to spread the pain as evenly as possible in an era when power outlets drive more aspects of American living than ever before.

But blackouts can have severe health consequences for the most vulnerable residents, particularly older people who cannot handle high temperatures or who rely on lifesaving devices. And politically, outages have loomed perilously over California leaders ever since Gray Davis was recalled as governor in 2003 and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Mr. Davis presided over the state just as California’s deregulated energy market fell prey to traders, forcing the state to shut off power. While Mr. Davis had other political vulnerabilities, voters remembered him in part as the governor who could not keep the lights on.

For Mr. Newsom, a rising Democratic star who has pointedly compared California’s handling of climate-driven emergencies with those of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Republican administration in Texas, the ability to forestall outages was both practically and politically important. In a recorded message released early Tuesday, Mr. Newsom had warned urgently that “the risk for outages is real.”

By midafternoon, the state had broken a record, set 16 years ago, for energy use, with demand forecasts topping 52,000 megawatts. At 5:30 p.m., California ISO issued its highest level of alert — the last possible precursor for blackouts, and a few Northern California cities cut power to some areas over the course of about an hour.

By 8 p.m., however, the operator had dialed back its warning.

“Thank you, California,” the ISO tweeted, noting that “consumer conservation played a big part” in averting the crisis.

“Record-breaking temperatures. More demand on our energy grid than ever before. But we avoided emergency power outages tonight,” Mr. Newsom tweeted. “We can do this. If we keep it up we can get through this unprecedented heatwave.”

California hasn’t initiated blackouts since August 2020, when the state took that desperate step because it could no longer supply enough power to meet demand.

Daniel L. Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that the heat that had settled over much of the West had been “extraordinary in almost every dimension except humidity.”

The danger, he added, was not just in the exceptional heat, but also its “mind-blowing” duration. “Sacramento has rarely seen temperatures of 110 degrees plus for three, four days on end,” he said.

The cumulative impact, Mr. Swain said, has not only superheated air masses during the day but has also made nights warmer, worsening drought, turning trees and brush into tinder and intensifying fire risks.

“We’re going on a week now in a lot of the state where the temperatures, even at night, don’t go below 85 degrees, right before the autumn wind season,” Mr. Swain said. “What do you think that’s doing to vegetation? Nothing good.”

After enduring calamitous fires in the past few years, California residents now brace every summer and fall for weeks of infernos and smoke-filled skies. But this year’s fire season has by many measures been less intense so far. Last year, enormous fires burned more than 2.5 million acres in California; just 241,074 acres have burned so far in 2022.

Still, the weeks ahead typically comprise the worst of fire season.

More than a dozen large fires roared Tuesday throughout the state, with 45 new blazes erupting statewide on Sunday alone, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

By Tuesday afternoon, the Fairview fire near Hemet had spread to 4,500 acres, killing two people who appeared to have been trying to escape, destroying at least seven structures and prompting evacuations. The Hemet Unified School District closed schools on Tuesday for its 24,000 students.

Those deaths were in addition to two over the weekend from the Mill fire, which erupted on Friday near a defunct lumber mill in the town of Weed, Calif., near the Oregon border. It was 60 percent contained by Tuesday night after consuming more than 4,200 acres and destroying at least 100 homes, local officials said, including in the Lincoln Heights area of Weed, a historically Black community founded by mill workers in the 1920s.

A few miles to the west, the Mountain fire in Siskiyou County grew to more than 11,000 acres, a land mass roughly the size of the city of Berkeley. Chewing through steep canyons rattling with dry vegetation, it was only 30 percent contained, the state fire authorities said.

In parts of Los Angeles County, a 15-day outdoor watering ban amplified the misery index for about four million customers of the Metropolitan Water District as crews made planned repairs to a pipeline that carries water from the Colorado River to Southern California. In San Diego, parts of the cooling system broke down in a 22-story courthouse downtown. At U.C.L.A., students and faculty members finishing up the summer term were told to work remotely rather than spend time in dozens of buildings that wouldn’t have air-conditioning.

Some of the biggest concerns were in the bay-hugging cities of Oakland and San Francisco, where sea breezes are so reliable that few buildings have air-conditioning. Temperatures soared past 90 degrees in some neighborhoods before midafternoon winds provided welcome relief.

BART trains operated at reduced speeds for most of the day because of the potential for heat-warped tracks to cause derailments. Oakland officials set up a large white tent with a large fan and a mister near a prominent freeway homeless encampment and tried to move some people into tiny houses.

“It’s OK in the shade,” Jude Murcgacz, a 49-year-old encampment resident, said as he held two small dogs. “The sun is pretty hard.”

The most intense heat was concentrated on Tuesday in Northern California and the Central Valley, where government agencies turned up office thermostats to save energy and outdoor workers were sent home early.

In Livermore — where more than 5,800 Pacific Gas & Electric customers lost power Monday evening for several hours because of equipment failures related to 116-degree heat and high demand, PG&E said — some families brought their children downtown to splash in public fountains, seeking relief.

“This is definitely global warming,” Tami Vusia said as her 4-year-old daughter Zella played in the water. Worried about heat exhaustion, she said she had brought her child from nearby Fremont because she does not have air-conditioning.

Though Tuesday was expected to be the most extreme day for heat during this spell, meteorologists said the heat was unlikely to ease much in California before Thursday and could linger beyond that in other parts of the West. In the longer term, it is a harbinger of a new normal, Mr. Swain of U.C.L.A. said.

“The number of heat events that would have been impossible to fathom in the 20th century that have happened in the last three months is astonishing,” Mr. Swain said. “Wildfires burning rowhouses in London. The heat wave for weeks on end in China. Now this. The extraordinary has become ordinary when it comes to extreme heat.”

Education

Boston Scambles to Fill More than 200 Teaching Positions

Boston Herald – The number of teachers Boston Public Schools has to hire by the Sept. 8 start of school has declined slightly since last week but has still left administrators scrambling to fill more than 200 openings.

As of last count, BPS had 217 teacher vacancies – 28 fewer than a week ago – and 783 substitutes ready for school.

“It’s just kind of a perfect storm,” especially with COVID and the month-long shutdown of the Orange Line, which many students and staff use to get to school, Senior Deputy Superintendent of Academics Linda Chen said. “We have been reaching out to retired people,” as well as district alumni who have graduated from one of Boston’s universities.

For example, BPS said it is working with the higher education community with the help of Boston University Wheelock School of Education and the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics.

To recruit more teachers, district officials have also joined with the city to hold job fairs and worked with school and central office leaders to help recruit for hard-to-staff areas.

And they have been working with faith-based communities, which in turn, have joined with more than 50 institutions that have been sharing and handing out recruiting materials.

At Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting, Acting Superintendent Drew Echelson said, “There will be some hiccups, but we are ready to meet the moment and are quite confident that it will be a strong start to the year for our 49,000 students.”

Even before the current teacher shortage, the number over the past school year fell to 4,256 from 4,595 in 2020-2021 — the first drop in at least five years, according to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The shortage of teachers is not unique to Boston. Houston, Texas, has over 2,200 teaching vacancies

National Test Scores Plunge during the Pandemic

Boston Globe – Test scores in elementary school math and reading plummeted to levels unseen for decades, according to the first nationally representative report comparing student achievement from just before the pandemic to performance two years later.

Math scores dropped seven points during that period, marking a first-ever decline, while reading scores slipped five points, producing the largest dip in 30 years on the National Assessment for Educational Progress, or NAEP, often called “the nation’s report card.” The students who took the tests — given from January to March in 2020 and in 2022 — were 9 years old and mostly in fourth grade.

“These results are sobering,” said Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, which administers the tests. “It’s clear that COVID-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group.”

The falloff — which she called “historic” — left little doubt about the pandemic’s toll. The average math score of 234 this year was comparable to the average score recorded in 1999, and the reading score of 215 was similar to the 2004 score. How long it might take to catch up is unclear and not likely to be understood until further test results are analyzed.

Carr said the academic losses are part of a complex picture of pandemic schooling. Other studies have shown a rise in classroom disruption, school violence, absenteeism, cyberbullying, and teacher and staff vacancies, and schools also say more students are seeking mental health services. “There are a lot of factors that contextualize these data that we’re looking at,” she said.