By Bob Seay
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May 17, 2012
BOSTON — The Massachusetts unemployment rate dipped to 6.3 percent in April from 6.5 percent in March. It's the lowest level since October 2008.
While the state added 2,500 jobs last month, there's a renewed call for a major investment in higher education to create more jobs. A new study has found that an $800 million investment in higher education in the state would essentially pay for itself.
Co-author Michael Ash, head of economics at UMass Amherst, said that investment would produce an extra 11,200 graduates, 7,000-8,000 new jobs and $740 million in new income tax revenue. It's a better payoff, Ash said, than cutting taxes or putting the same dollars into casinos. In fact, he claimed that cutting taxes produces the worst results.
