Author: Crystal Yormick

  • There’s been a decline in SNAP sales at Mass. farmers markets since Nov. 1

    Massachusetts farmers are beginning to feel the effects of reduced federal SNAP benefits, with some businesses reporting their SNAP are down by half at farmers markets around Boston.

    Nov. 1 was the one-month mark for the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1. Patrick Penn, deputy under secretary of food nutrition and consumer services for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said last week in a court filing that SNAP recipients will receive 65% of their benefits for the month. The decision follows an order by a federal judge for the Trump administration to use emergency funding for the program Oct. 31.

    David Wadleigh, owner of Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, said last week that he’s been to a market every single day Nov. 1. At all of them, he said foot traffic was slower than usual and at the Copley Square Farmers Market on Friday, SNAP sales were down by about 50%from before Nov. 1.

    SNAP purchases typically make up about 20% of his profits at markets, which worked out to about a 10% decrease in profits overall, he said.

    “We’ve been paying to upkeep these plants already. We’ve already put the money out,” Wadleigh said. “Now the risk is the money might not come in like we’re expecting it to.”

    Chath pierSath, a farm worker at Nicewicz Family Family Farm in Bolton, drew attention to agriculture’s effect on the larger state and city economy. Enabling people to eat sustains this part of the economy, he said.

    “By making sure that access to food and water (is available), you create a larger picture of our protective economy,” he said. “When people are alive, well and healthy, then the economy is alive and healthy.”

    Some farmers said they hadn’t yet seen a decline, but said it was too early in the day to determine if sales would be affected or not.

    “Farmers are in many ways notoriously optimistic,” said Edith Murnane, executive director of Massachusetts Farmers Markets. “There’s a sense of ‘we’ll wait and see.’”

    Farmers said help is available to help from the state’s Healthy Incentives Program as well as community donations and assistance programs as avenues for affected customers to continue shopping at markets.

    Markets in areas like Somerville and Cambridge have programs that allow people to obtain additional SNAP benefits. For the Davis Square Farmers Market in Somerville, users typically need to have a remaining SNAP balance to match their account balances for the month by up to $15. In light of the shutdown, customers have been able to receive benefits regardless of the amount on their cards, said Murnane.

    Vendors who don’t take SNAP benefits at their formers market stands said that while they haven’t been directly affected yet, they worry that’s possible if the shutdown continues, since consumers may choose to use money they would use for other uses on food instead.

    Most farmers with leftover produce said they plan to donate their crops to local food banks. While concerned about their own sales, many said they’re also worried for the consumers themselves.

    “We at least have places that we can donate (food) to so hopefully (people) will still have access to the food,” Wadleigh said. “We want everyone to be able to have access to our food.”

    As the federal government shutdown continues, farmer’s markets, neighborhood stores and supermarkets along with the retailing, agriculture and fishing sectors are all expected to feel continued impacts.

  • Mass. needs thousands more clean energy workers. Here’s how it plans to train them

    Massachusetts needs to train about 29,000 additional clean energy workers by 2030 to reach its climate goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s 2024 Industry Report. 

    Jennifer Applebaum, MassCEC’s managing director of workforce development, said in reaching that estimate the agency looked at both its goals and what the market is saying at the moment.

    “What drives hiring is absolutely still local industry and business demand,” Applebaum said. “The programs and workforce efforts that we set up and support have to be tied to that local and real time demand.”

    The Healey Administration, in partnership with Social Finance — a national nonprofit and registered investment advisor — recently implemented the Massachusetts Climate Careers Fund to fill climate employment gaps, grow economic mobility and prop up a diverse workforce.

    The CCF offers 0% interest loans to low-income Massachusetts residents for climate career training. Once a worker is certified in a “good-paying role that supports the climate transition,” and earns at least $47,000 annually, they begin repaying their loan. Repayments will help fund future participants, according to the Social Finance website.

    “We get to spend that same dollar over and over again,” Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer said at a climate workforce forum of about 50 people hosted by the Boston Foundation and Social Finance Oct. 8. 

    Programs include electrical and plumbing apprenticeships, HVAC certification and solar tech training. 

    The original goal for the fund was $10 million, comprising both public and private philanthropic investment. MassCEC has not formally announced what the state’s specific contribution amount towards the fund will be yet, Applebaum said. 

    Kirstin Hill, president and chief operating officer of Social Finance, said there has been a “meaningful focus” on higher education nationwide but less investment in the workforce compared to other developed countries globally. 

    “One of the critical levers that’s missing, not only in Massachusetts, but across the country, is the workforce, and is the skilled labor workforce, in particular,” she said.

    Applebaum said historically the workforce was a limiting factor for clean energy, but with properly-skilled employees, these companies could be growing faster. 

    “Solutions are reaching places where there’s scale and need for much larger numbers of folks that are going to do the installation and the maintenance to make these changes really happen across the commonwealth,” Applebaum said. 

    Barriers that can prevent both training and employment include transportation, child-care and rent payments. The opportunity cost for training can sometimes derail workers from completing the needed steps, and other times, the jobs trained workers hold can be unsustainable for personal or external reasons.

    The International Renewable Energy Agency reported in July that 91% of renewable energy projects in 2024 were less expensive than their fossil fuel alternatives while renewables outpaced coal generation globally for the first half of 2025, according to a Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights report by Ember, a global energy think tank. 

    So the “horse is out the barn” — or a done deal — Hoffer said at the forum, referring to the globalized clean energy transition. 

    “[Massachusetts] is in line with that forward thinking, and the market is supporting these transitions,” said Mary Wagner, clean energy training manager at Holyoke Community College. 

    Jobs in the clean energy sector include electricians, energy auditors, electric vehicle mechanics and HVAC technicians as well as solar, offshore wind, EV repairs and geothermal technology related careers.

    The clean energy industry makes up 3% of the Massachusetts workforce, according to MassCEC’s 2024 Executive Summary, and the industry has experienced 100% job growth since 2010. As it expands, the supply of workers and the training and resources needed must increase to keep up with demand. 

    “Filling those jobs is a tremendous economic impact. We need the workers, and [these are] good high paying jobs.” said Rep. Jeffrey Roy, D-Franklin, who is currently sponsoring a bill to establish green energy tracks in vocational schools.

    Andrew Baker, workforce training manager at HCC, expects there to be job growth in the trades during a time when other jobs are threatened by artificial intelligence. 

    “You can’t AI your way out of a broken furnace,” Baker said.

  • Fed’s Collins presents benign economic outlook, emphasizes inflation and wage growth focus

    Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan M. Collins presented a “benign” outlook on the economy with inflation and wage growth remaining main focuses as markets begin experiencing long-term effects of continued inflation, tariffs and heightened market uncertainty.

     Collins said Wednesday that the Federal Reserve must maintain its federal independence to ensure it can make long term monetary policy decisions to reach and sustain its goals, including a 2% target for inflation it currently exceeds.  

    “That’s an environment that really supports maximum employment,” Collins said to a gathering of about 200 people, consisting of business leaders across sectors from outsourcing to financing. “Vibrancy enables people to be able to thrive.” 

    She reported solid economic growth and a resilient consumer consumption, which she attributed to the healthy spending positions of households and firms, and reduced employment growth that reflects a slow growth in both labor supply and labor demand and uncertainty in the current economic environment. 

    “As the uncertainty fades and firms adjust to the new tariff environment, I would expect the pace of hiring to increase,” Collins said. 

    While the broader economy has remained “relatively robust,” Collins said she expects the effects from tariffs to become more pronounced as firms pass costs onto consumers in the form of higher prices, which in turn would limit purchasing power and household spending. 

    Consumers have responded with resilience so far, she said, but added that this could evolve, so it should be watched carefully.

    Current market challenges include heightened uncertainty, housing supply and affordability, scarcity of childcare and increased difficulties for maintaining technology, science and healthcare ecosystems, according to Collins.

    Collins, who usually roots economic decisions in data, said considering the federal government shutdown – where certain data might now be unavailable until it reopens – the Federal Reserve will use a range of other valuable indicators to make decisions.

    “We get creative and look at the range of information out there,” she said in an interview with the Boston Business Journal.

    Most Boston business leaders were unsurprised by the findings and presented a range of reactions following the presentations from “cautiously pessimistic” to neutral to optimistic.

    Joelle Moroney, vice president of brand partnerships for Captiv8, said she appreciated Collins’ “audacious” goals of financial stability and employment. 

    “It gave me a good perspective to lean in on these small business owners and bring our part to support those areas wherever we can,” Moroney said.

    DJ Dantas, founder and CEO of Solvane Strategies, said he was unsurprised by Collins’ findings and echoed her use of the word benign to describe the economic outlook.

    “A lot of it are things that I’ve observed and heard before,” Dantas said. “I was more so expecting some new information, something I haven’t heard before.

    Topics not addressed during the hour-long presentation that business leaders said they would have liked to see included growing wage gaps, a greater focus on healthcare and education and tariffs’ effects outside the United States, including China, which Rob Natale, founder of North Square Capital, described as the “elephant in the room.”

  • Food truck owners push for bill establishing state-wide health regulations

    As the summer winds to an end, and with it, the prime season for mobile food establishments, lawmakers are considering a bill to create statewide health regulations for food truck businesses.

    Current regulations require trucks to obtain separate permits from the local board of health for every vehicle they use in each municipality the establishments conduct business in. While the businesses are required to meet certain provisions under the Retail Food Code, the local boards “may require additional information or plans.”

    “To just not have any uniform standards in place is really a barrier for food trucks to be able to get to more communities,” said the bill’s sponsor Sen. Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth.

    Compared to their brick and mortar counterparts, mobile food establishments must deal with several permitting processes based on how many municipalities — of which there are 351 statewide — they choose to conduct business in.

    “We would love businesses to have less hurdles,” said Jessica Moore, director of government affairs for the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, in support of the bill. “If it’s someone who has both [a food truck and a brick-and-mortar restaurant], they know what they’re doing. We want to make business as safe, easy and clean as possible.”

    Food truck owners have described the health regulation process as tedious, confusing, disorganized, costly and redundant. 

    And the format of permits vary across municipalities, according to owners. Towns decide how long the permits are valid for and can require separate permits for individual events if they wish. 

    Ryan Margulis, chief executive officer of Bees And Thank You, a mobile food establishment, testified at a Sept. 10 hearing of the Legislature’s Public Health Committee that he has spent more than $17,000 and 472 hours — the equivalent to about 59 full work days — on health permits over the last five years.

    “We end up spending thousands and thousands of dollars per year,” said Mari Kilmain, treasurer of the SSFTA and events coordinator for Sarcastic Swine BBQ & Restaurant.  

    Some owners said the permitting process prevents them from conducting business in certain towns. Inspections typically take about 10 minutes, according to Kilmain, but the traveling time and costs add up.

    O’Connor and several owners said support for the bill has been unanimous amongst mobile food establishments. The only concern he’s heard, O’Connor said, involves the money communities would lose from permitting fees. 

    “There’s other ways in which communities can recoup the money that they could potentially lose,” O’Connor said. “But again, we’re talking [about] not that much money, a couple thousand for each one of the communities. Growing the industry will see more benefit.” 

    “It just really comes down to common sense,” said Clint Smith, an original member of the SSFTA, referring to the bill. 

    Smith, owner of South Shore Taco Guy, services 24 towns across Massachusetts and pays about $3,500-$3,800 a year in permitting fees—but it isn’t the cost that bothers him.

    “It’s the redundancy and time it takes to get these inspections [that’s the problem] for me personally,” Smith said.

    One goal O’Connor has with passing this bill is for mobile food businesses to build themselves up and invest in brick-and-mortar restaurants, which will increase meal availability, taxes and employment.

    Katie Keefe, president of the SSFTA and owner of Ellie’s Treats, said the current permitting process has affected opportunities for businesses and deterred people from entering the industry. 

    “There are people that genuinely just do not get started in the industry because they’re so overwhelmed by it,” Keefe said. “If the permitting process was simplified in Massachusetts, I definitely think you would see more food trucks.”