Mass. economy shrank 44% rate in second quarter

The Massachusetts economy shrank at a staggering pace in the second quarter, plummeting by an annual rate of nearly 44%, the biggest decline on record, according to an estimate from MassBenchmarks economists on Thursday. The Bay State’s real gross domestic product declined significantly more than the country’s as a whole, as U.S. GDP dropped by an annual rate of almost 33% during the same time period, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Massachusetts was hit harder…