Worcester Business Journal

4 Worcester Business Journal | October 1, 2018 | wbjournal.com C E N T R A L M AS S I N B R I E F Worcester median income drops nearly 6% V E R BAT I M Expansion plans "We've been bursting at the seams for the last couple of years. It's taken us at least two years to come up with this plan." Robert Chalue, president and founder of Southbridge-based Hardline Heat Treating, on the company's plans to expand its facility Marijuana sales pending inspections "We're getting there. There's no question about it. But again, the fi- nal inspection is to see if there are any issues, and if there are issues we're going to have to have those issues dealt with and then we'll have to go out and re-inspect." Cannabis Control Commission chairman Steven Hoffman, on the start of legal marijuana sales and final steps Pot firms don't grow money on trees "Towns can sometimes be miopic and lose sight of the fact that we're businesses trying to open up. We're not unicorns or some magical thing that makes money out of nothing." Medway-based marijuana grower CommCan CEO Marc Rosenfeld, on cities and towns asking cannabis companies for extra financial benefits in required host community agreements T he median income for a Worcester household fell by 5.6 percent last year to $41,561, according to Cen- sus data released this month. Since a peak of $45,011 in 2013, median income in Worcester fell by 10.5 percent. "e fall in income in Worcester city is not an indicator of the strength or weakness of the local economy as much as the degree to which eco- nomic growth is shared across the region," said omas White, an Assumption Col- lege economics professor who studies the Greater Worcester economy. "is is related to the increase in income inequality that we have seen at the national level over the past several decades." at's a sharp contrast from the rest of Massachusetts, where median household in- come rose by nearly 3 percent last year and by 12 percent in the last three years to $77,385. More poor people, fewer rich people More Worcester residents appear to be falling into poverty, despite an unemploy- ment rate in the city of just 4.9 percent in July. In the most recent year, Worcester saw more house- holds report incomes below $15,000. In 2016, 17.9 percent of households said they were in those lowest income cate- gories. By 2017, that number rose to 21.9 percent. Statewide, 10.1 percent of Massa- chusetts households fell into those categories. For a household of one, the federal poverty rate is $12,144 in income annually, according to the state. For a family of four, the threshold is $25,104. At the same time, the city could be losing its top-earners. In 2017, Worcester households earning $75,000 or more made up 27.7 percent of the population. Just a year prior, it was 44.8 percent. In 2013, it was 37.9 percent. Timothy McGourthy, the executive director of the nonprofit Worcester Regional Research Bureau, cautioned that the year-to-year income data was a relatively small sample size and that data over a five-year period, includ- ing 2017, showed that income had essentially remained flat. e five-year sample collects from a larger sample of people, he said. "It's possible that one year's sample is simply markedly different from the prior year's sample," McGourthy said. e most recent five-year total for Worcester, from 2016, showed median household income as $45,599, which was a 1-percent decrease from the pre- vious five-year total in 2013 of $45,932. Of the five-year-period totals, McGourthy said he thinks Worcester "is following national trends where in- comes have not kept pace with produc- tivity and may finally turn the corner now due to low unemployment rates." Regional, state growth Across Worcester County and the Worcester metropolitan area – which the Census defines as Worcester County and Connecticut's Windham County – the numbers were more encouraging. Worcester County saw incomes rise last year by 1.6 percent to $70,402. Across the metro area, incomes rose by 2.4 percent to $69,412. In Boston city, median incomes grew last year by 5.4 percent to $66,758. Each of the other five New England states saw annual income increases in each of the past five years, except for a slight drop in Vermont last year. Nationally, median household income in the past year grew by 1.8 percent to $61,372. Worcester was not the only one among New England's largest cities to have its median household income fall last year. Springfield and Hartford fell by 6.8 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. W BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor

• Cover