The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation found that more than 110,900 people left the state between April 2020 and July 2022. And some of the trends pushing residents out of Massachusetts might sound all too familiar to those still here.

Massachusetts had the lowest rental vacancy rate in the U.S. in 2022 and the second-highest median rents, Boston features the second-highest traffic delay times in the nation, and the state recently posted its highest outmigration numbers in 30 years, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

But I like its latest report — a package of charts — because it highlights the full range of challenges facing the state. Here are some of the data points I found noteworthy.

On housing costs:

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said Thursday that several implementation questions left unresolved by the ballot question “must be answered soon or the state will exacerbate negative behavioral impacts of the surtax,” including tax avoidance and taxpayers moving out of state.

Last summer, a report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation suggested high costs and taxes were helping drive tens of thousands of taxpayers out of the state every year. Between 2010 and 2019, about 800,000 tax filers with a combined $65 billion in adjusted gross income, left Massachusetts, based on Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Census Bureau data, the group said.

Yet, even with this solid foundation, there are warning signs we must heed.

According to a recent report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, Massachusetts lost 46,000 residents in 2021, the 4th greatest state population loss in the country.

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, in a report released last week, said the state’s population already was aging and growing at a slower rate before the COVID-19 pandemic, but that’s been “exacerbated” by employees’ ability to work remotely, which gave them the mobility to take new jobs in a tight labor market.

MTF President Eileen McAnneny said the state’s talent pipeline is contracting, a threat to sectors that have traditionally helped the state economy grow, like higher education and health care.

The pandemic put a strain on our workforce here in Massachusetts. The latest report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF) found startling trends when it comes to the population of Massachusetts, and they were all exacerbated by COVID-19.

Demographics pose a problem for the health of the Massachusetts economy. The state’s population is aging. The number of people in the workforce is declining.

While policy makers may not be able to do anything to increase the birth rate, there are steps to take to encourage young adults to stay in Massachusetts, or perhaps move here. That is the message to state legislators in a new report from the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with MTF President Eileen McAnneny.

 MTF President Eileen McAnneny discusses a new report on Massachusetts demographics.