New England Has the Highest Increase in Income Disparity in the Nation

New England is a generally prosperous region and its residents are doing relatively well economically (see Table 1). Yet, between 1989 and 2004, the region experienced the largest increase in income inequality in the country. Much of this widening gap between rich and poor was driven by growth among the top earners, but the changes are not simply the "rich getting richer." Rather, they reflect the hollowing out of the middle caused by significant changes in the nation's economy. The loss of manufacturing employment for low-skilled workers has been coupled with increased demand, and rewards, for high-skilled and high tech employment. These shifts were more pronounced in New England because of the region's highly educated population, strong research and development base, and relatively high cost of business operations, which pushes low-skilled jobs elsewhere

Changes in income distribution in New England

Although by some measures New Englanders are doing well economically, the region has experienced the largest jump in household income inequality of all nine census divisions. The authors parse the data.Income distribution - New England

Regional Air Quality Management Aspects of Climate Change: Impact of Climate Mitigation Options on Regional Air Emissions

We investigate the projected impact of six climate mitigation scenarios on U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), and nitrogen oxides (NO_X) associated with energy use in major sectors of the U.S. economy (commercial, residential, industrial, electricity generation, and transportation). We use the EPA U.S. 9-region national database with the MARKet Allocation energy system model to project emissions changes over the 2005 to 2050 time frame. The modeled scenarios are two carbon tax, two low carbon transportation, and two biomass fuel choice scenarios. In the lower carbon tax and both biomass fuel choice scenarios, SO₂ and NO_X achieve reductions largely through pre-existing rules and policies, with only relatively modest additional changes occurring from the climate mitigation measures. The higher carbon tax scenario projects greater declines in CO₂ and SO₂ relative to the 2050 reference case, but electricity sector NO_X increases. This is a result of reduced investments in power plant NO_X controls in earlier years in anticipation of accelerated coal power plant retirements, energy penalties associated with carbon capture systems, and shifting of NO_X emissions in later years from power plants subject to a regional NO_X cap to those in regions not subject to the cap

Impacts of Potential CO₂‑Reduction Policies on Air Quality in the United States

Impacts of emissions changes from four potential U.S. CO₂ emission reduction policies on 2050 air quality are analyzed using the community multiscale air quality model (CMAQ). Future meteorology was downscaled from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) ModelE General Circulation Model (GCM) to the regional scale using the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model. We use emissions growth factors from the EPAUS9r MARKAL model to project emissions inventories for two climate tax scenarios, a combined transportation and energy scenario, a biomass energy scenario and a reference case. Implementation of a relatively aggressive carbon tax leads to improved PM_2.5 air quality compared to the reference case as incentives increase for facilities to install flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies. However, less capital is available to install NO<i>_X</i> reduction technologies, resulting in an O₃ increase. A policy aimed at reducing CO₂ from the transportation sector and electricity production sectors leads to reduced emissions of mobile source NO_<i>X</i>, thus reducing O₃. Over most of the U.S., this scenario leads to reduced PM_2.5 concentrations. However, increased primary PM_2.5 emissions associated with fuel switching in the residential and industrial sectors leads to increased organic matter (OM) and PM_2.5 in some cities