FROM OUR PRINTED JUNE 1, 2026 EDITION (IF YOU MISS THE PRINTED EDITION, YOU MISS A LOT)
by Ted Tripp
Sr. Political Reporter
The Pioneer Institute, one of Massachusetts’ premier think tanks, has issued a study (tinyurl.com/PIMassBusnPlumets) showing that the net rate of business formation for the Baystate has dropped to one of the lowest in the country and the state is currently losing more businesses than are being created.
From September 2022 to September 2024 Pioneer reports that the commonwealth lost a net total of 17,549 employer businesses during that period. And from January 2020 through September 2024, Massachusetts had the lowest average quarterly net business formation rate in any of the 50 states.
Pioneer points out this rapid decline is a sudden change from before the COVID years, where from January 2010 to December 2019 Massachusetts had the second highest average quarterly net business formation rate in the country – behind only Utah. Pioneer adds that even during the Great Recession, Massachusetts exceeded the national average.
The Report shows that from January 2020 to September 2025 the commonwealth’s total establishment’s growth was just 13%, less than half that of key high-tech competitors like North Carolina (31.1 percent), New Hampshire (25.4 percent), and Florida (21.5 percent). Even Idaho grew its establishment base by 58.1 percent during the same period.
Pioneer’s policy recommendations to reverse this catastrophic trend include targeted tax reforms such as eliminating/simplifying the corporate excise tax, updating sections of the tax code, raising the estate tax threshold to the federal level, and eliminating the $456 minimum corporate excise tax that applies even to unprofitable firms.
Pioneer further points out that established firms are leaving the state. In 2023, Massachusetts lost a net 70 firms to other states. And from 2020 to 2023, the Baystate lost a net 149 firms — the fifth-largest loss of any state — “with many migrating to lower-cost, more tax-competitive destinations like Florida, Texas, and North Carolina.”
Pioneer Institute Executive Director Jim Stergios adds, “Massachusetts dramatic decline in business formation strongly suggests that investors and entrepreneurs are choosing not to build here. That loss in investment is driving the state’s negative job growth – an area where Massachusetts now ranks at the very bottom nationally. Without tax reform and a serious response to our housing crisis, an entire generation of entrepreneurs will build their companies elsewhere.”
[Editor’s Note: Last month, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte welcomed yet another company, Analogic Corporation and its 800+ employees, to the granite state, as the company re-located its headquarters to Salem, N.H. after nearly half a century in Massachusetts.] ♦
