Number of millionaires expected to surge in Boston

MSNBC ^ | 2005 | WHDH-TV

[Torie]

High taxes and wealth can be friends.

[Torie]

Boston wealth bump.

[GSlob]

"High taxes and wealth can be friends."
Non sequitur. Massachusetts income tax is (or was) 5.3%. Massachusetts sales tax is 5%, with food, clothing and medicines excepted from it. Compare these numbers with, say, Alabama: income tax at 5%, sales tax 8%, and no exceptions to sales tax. It is the cost of living in MA which is high, more particularly real estate.

[jveritas]

But I thought that the filthy rich millionaires are only Republicans and Texans oil man. There are no millionaires Boston the bastion of liberalism in America. Kennedy and Kerry only repsresent hard working middle class people and defend us from the greedy rich people from Texas. (extreme sarcasm)

[lightman]

Ain't inflation wonderful?

[Torie]

Well, the socialist cradle seems to have the highest percent of millionaries on the fruited plain. Why would have imagined that?

[FreeKeys]

Ain't inflation wonderful?

I'm sure that's a big part of it. Not only have housing prices skyrocketed across the country, they've especially done so (and continue to rise) in strictly-zoned and already built-up neighborhoods. I wonder how many of those are in and around Boston?

[squidly]

That was my guess. Without clicking the link, I'm guessing real estate appreciation is the primary source of the increased wealth.

[Nonstatist]

Boston is the biggest "college town" in the US; with much of its wealth driven by government subsidy, indirectly or not.

OTOH, if high taxes is so great, why does the northeast have such high emigration? Why are the number of net jobs stagnant for decades? Why are businesses moving west and south? Why are people moving there too?

[RedWhiteBlue]

High taxes and wealth can be friends.

Hardly. From the article itself: Some of Boston's principal industries, including technology companies, law firms and financial services companies, pay their executives high salaries. Also, a generation of baby boomers is entering peak earning years and saving for retirement in 401(k) plans, so that even middle managers can save more than $1 million.

What you are seeing here is two things. First, there are principle industries that tend to pay high salaries no matter where they are located. But in Boston and surrounding areas, the high cost of living and taxes will necessitate even higher salaries in order to compensate for the high costs of being there. They have to do this to attract talent. Second, much of the money is expected to be in 401K's, which means it hasn't been taxed yet. In fact, the high taxes are a tremendous incentive for them to do everything they can to shield their income from high taxes by contributing the max to their 401K's. The high taxes are driving the high savings rate to get OUT of paying the taxes. Odds are, when it is time to start withdrawals, they'll move out of Taxachusetts to somewhere warm with lower taxes, like Florida.

[IronJack]

The Boston metropolitan area already has a high percentage of millionaires in its population

Many created, no doubt, by money funneled to them through projects like the Big Dig. Government work can be lucrative, especially when there's no accountability for the shoddy workmanship or missing funds. The same ghosts that vote for Ted Kennedy were on Big Dig payrolls. Hard not to make a profit when your help is that cheap.

[A. Pole]

The 02110 zip code of downtown Boston has 24 percent millionaires.

Few people live there - this is the downtown/financial district etc ...

[Nonstatist]

High taxes and wealth can be friends

Cut the subsidized federal student loan program by 2 thirds and Bostons housing market will plummet, along with all its millionaires.

[Torie]

You are right about the subsidies, but then the knowledge and high tech are high value added. Harvard and MIT are ranked right up there as the top universities on the planet. The Boston metro area is dumping low value added jobs, and has not yet been hit much with low paid illegals to do the service industry and construction work, maybe due to powerful unions, or insular culture, I don't know. The planet is complex. Unipolar explanations typically don't work very well, and probably even quadratic equations don't either. In fact, it may be too complex for math to handle at all, and it requires the heavy duty lifting of the humanities and social scientists to parse in all its vagaries. :)

By the way, the price of farm land in Iowa keeps going up. I watch Madison County like a hawk. Catch the wave.

[Prost1]

Senator Kennedy just reported his BAR bill!

[Torie]

Of course, but it is not so much the subsidized students, as the subsidized research. Students are chump change. In fact, Harvard and MIT would flouish without any federal student subsidies. That is why God created endowments, and favored Boston most of all with his generousity.

[Torie]

The aunt of President Bush lives in Lincoln I think.

[Torie]

Unless the Big Dig got massive federal funds though, it would just be moving the chairs around on the Titanic. In fact, NE exports money to the South and West via federal taxes.

[California Patriot]

Liberal scum, of the rich variety.

[CurlyDave]

The Boston metropolitan area already has a high percentage of millionaires in its population -- 4.8 percent, or nearly one in 20 households -- a higher percentage than in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, each with 3.7 percent of its population as millionaires.

According to Scott Burns (financial writer for the Dallas Morning News) 4.7% is really not that far out of the ordinary.

Wealth Report