Are Boston rents busting your budget? Are you able to work remotely? There are options. Vermont and several other states are offering incentives to settle there, and bring your income with you. And now, western Massachusetts may be joining in. State Senator Eric Lesser has filed a bill that aims to nudge Boston-based workers to uproot themselves and settle in the western part of the state. Lesser spoke with WGBH's All Things Considered Anchor Barbara Howard about his proposal. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Barbara Howard: You're trying to get people to relocate to four counties: Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden. What kinds of incentives are we talking about to get them to do that?
Sen. Eric Lesser: What we're talking about is basically helping with the relocation and moving costs, up to $10,000 for two years. So two years at $5,000 per year, $10,000 total.
Howard: And they have to stay and collect it year by year, so they don't just run off with $10,000 all at once?
Lesser: Exactly, and they can use that towards moving expenses, office retrofits, things like that.
Howard: You argue that this goes beyond bringing disposable income to western Massachusetts, which needs the influx of income from taxes and the disposable income that these workers would bring with them. You say it doesn't just help western Massachusetts, it also helps Boston. How does Boston stand to benefit?
Lesser: Because there's overcrowding — you’ve got workers to spare. The biggest challenge you've got in Boston is out of control rent. There's not enough housing, there's a shortage. But we have the inverse challenge in western Massachusetts. So if you have someone who's living in Boston, living in Newton or wherever, they're working at Fidelity, they're tired of the grind, they're tired of the out of control rents, and they're tired of the exhausting commutes, you can move to western Massachusetts, where we have tons of open space. We have great institutions. We have great quality of life, low cost of living, and you can still get into Boston once a week, once a month for the company meetings, but do your work remotely. It's really a way to help both places, and then you free up more space in Boston for other folks, and maybe you'll even help bring rents down a little bit.
Howard: I understand that Vermont is one of the inspirations for this program, it has a program along the same lines. It's similar to other programs — I'm thinking of Tulsa, which is offering not just financial incentives to have people move there, but also infrastructure, like office space for people who work remotely, so that they can create an actual community when they move there. Are you thinking of anything like that?
Lesser: Absolutely. The state already has some really inventive co-working and creative place-making grants. The idea is that this is a part of a holistic package that we want to sell, in terms of spreading out the red hot growth you see in Boston to the rest of the state.
So rail investments are a big part of that, like expanding rail access to Springfield. Things like new co-working spaces — there's a new innovation center in downtown Springfield that would be a great location for people to do their remote working. I do think it's part of a holistic reorientation we need to make. The economy does not begin and end in the Seaport in Boston. There are a lot of communities all over our state that have a lot to offer. We need to help encourage people to check them out.
Howard: When you say remote workers, you're talking about people who maybe are programmers, for example, who can work wherever they have their computer set up?
Lesser: Yeah, it would largely be programmers, graphic designers, freelance workers — anyone that doesn't need to be tied to an office, that doesn't need to do face-to-face work every day.
Howard: Your bill earmarks $1 million over three years. That's a pretty small amount. Is this just a test run?
Lesser: Exactly, it's a pilot. We want to see if it works. We want to see what the interest level is, see what the feedback is, and potentially grow it from there.
Howard: Have there been efforts on Beacon Hill to push programs like this in the past?
Lesser: I don't think so. Part of the idea for this was watching the G.E. incentives — hundreds of millions of dollars handed to one of the wealthiest companies on earth to locate in one of the wealthiest places in the entire state, in Fort Point Channel. So the idea here is, instead of giving tens of millions of dollars to companies, let's give the incentives, let's give the cash directly to workers to build their lives and buy homes in communities that need the investment. You know, our areas in western Massachusetts are graying. We're losing population, the workforce is aging. If we don't do some new creative things to reverse that trend, eventually that's going to drag the whole state's economy down.
Howard: Well, you're quite the salesman there. I have to ask, what are the odds of your bill getting through and becoming law?
Lesser: I'm optimistic. We've gotten a lot of great feedback from lawmakers who saw the bill filed, so I'm optimistic. And to be continued, as they say.
Howard: Well thanks for joining us, Senator Lesser.
Lesser: Thanks for having me, Barbara.
