How a State Agency Used Cost of Living Data to Measure the Economic Value of Veterans
The challenge
When Massachusetts passed the Hero Act in 2024, it introduced two new property tax provisions for veterans: one allowing a cost-of-living increase to existing exemptions, and another that would allow increases up to double of the current amounts. Both have the potential to ease financial pressure on veteran households. But unlike existing exemptions, the state would not reimburse municipalities for the additional cost. Every dollar of expanded relief would need to come from local revenue. In response, communities began questioning whether they could afford to absorb these additional tax-relief measures.
The Office of the Veteran Advocate (OVA)—a small independent agency in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts responsible for systemic review, investigations, and policy advocacy on behalf of veterans—was fielding those questions from cities and towns across the state. Municipal leaders wanted to see the numbers before they committed. And with 351 municipalities in Massachusetts, each with different budgets, demographics, and local economies, producing individual financial analyses for every town wasn't feasible.
OVA set out to build a dashboard that could answer whether municipalities could afford to expand veteran property tax benefits at scale.
The solution: Massachusetts OVA x Living Wage Institute
To make the economic case, OVA needed to estimate what veterans contribute to local economies—not just what the property tax benefit would cost municipal budgets. Accordingly, this required a model that captured both a spending and a cost side.
On the spending side, our county-level Wage Index data helped OVA model assumptions about how much these veterans spend locally. Where employers and platforms typically reference the living wage as a benchmark for what to pay, OVA used it as an empirical floor for estimating how much of a veteran's income gets spent in the community where they reside. This community-specific spending input feeds into an economic multiplier framework that estimates how much of that spending stays in each municipality’s economy.
On the cost side, OVA divides total municipal budgets by population to arrive at the per-resident cost of services, adjusted for state reimbursements that often cover the majority of reported veteran benefit costs.
The result is a net veteran community value estimate for every municipality. For Abington, MA, for example, the dashboard estimates an annual net value of roughly $6.8 million.
The impact
Since launching the dashboard, OVA has presented it to municipalities across Massachusetts. To date, over 50 communities have received training and access to this dashboard which has led to at least three communities utilizing the data during budget meetings to approve new property tax exemptions under the Hero Act, and more communities are currently still voting on adoption.
OVA's dashboard is a replicable example of how county-level living wage data can help policymakers move from anecdote to analysis for veterans and beyond. Equipped with cost-of-living data, public agencies can quantify spend- or cost-side assumptions, pressure test cost-benefit models, and estimate return on public investment.
While OVA used our Wage Index data to build an economic modeling tool for municipal budget decisions, our data is used to power a range of applications—from compensation benchmarking and software integrations to policy analysis and research.
Interested in licensing our Wage Index database for your analytical tools or research applications? Reach out to the Living Wage Institute team here to learn more.
