Small Business

In WBJ’s annual survey of readers regarding their outlook for next year, the overwhelming consensus is 2020 was not a good year for businesses in Massachusetts, but 2021 will almost certainly bring better fortunes.

Hartford business advisory firm blumshapiro, which has an office in downtown Worcester, will join CiftonLarsonAllen LLP, known as CLA, effective Jan. 1, the company announced on Thursday.

The vast majority of federal Paycheck Protection Program loans in the Worcester metropolitan area went to upper and middle income white neighborhoods, according to geocoded data released by Washington nonprofit National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Worcester’s City Council voted 8-3 to raise the city’s commercial property tax rate Wednesday night, while lowering the residential property tax rate.

Massachusetts will move a step backwards in its reopening plan, Gov. Baker announced Tuesday, a move that will lower the maximum size for outdoor gatherings and close some indoor recreational businesses and performance venues.

With encouraging signs for COVID-19 vaccination on the horizon, Massachusetts employers were more confident about business conditions last month than they have been since the pandemic upended daily life and the economy in March.

Long before the coronavirus pandemic hit, veterans services groups were facing a deep demographic challenge: Far fewer young vets have been interested in joining their local VFW, American Legion or other post.

The Rose Room Cafe and Tonic Bar in Webster will begin selling alcoholic beverages on Thursday after state authorities approved a request to grant the town an additional all-alcohol license, which the town voted to request at its October 2019 town meeting.

As of Nov. 16, the number of open small businesses in Massachusetts is down 37% compared to January, according to data from the Opportunity Insights Recovery Tracker, which is overseen by a research and policy analyst group based at Harvard University.

When Gov. Charlie Baker offered a revised budget plan in mid-October, one of the highlights flagged by the administration was a $100.7 million recovery plan that would invest in small businesses and community lenders that had not been helped during the pandemic by federal aid.