Jobless rate recalls better times. Employment, not so much
Vermont’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.6 percent in April, its lowest level in nearly nine years. But while joblessness hit a low last seen in June 2006, the number of Vermonters working still lags. The spring and summer of 2006 marked Vermont’s all-time employment peak, when more than 344,000 people were working. Last month, the number of employed stood at 335,673.
Lingering recession
The unemployment rates in Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle, and Washington Counties were lower in 2014 than in 2007, before the start of the Great Recession. But recovery hasn’t been that strong in most Vermont counties. Joblessness among residents of nine counties was higher in 2014 than it was seven years earlier. The county unemployment rate is measured by place of residence, not employment.
Wide health coverage
Just 7.2 percent of Vermonters lacked health insurance in 2013, according to the U.S. Census*—the second-lowest share of uninsured residents among the New England states. Only Massachusetts, which requires everyone to have coverage, was lower. Vermont also had the second-lowest percentage of uninsured children under 18. Nearly 4 in 10 Vermonters received some public health insurance—Medicaid, Medicare, or Veterans Administration benefits.
*In 2014, the state’s own research (Vermont Household Health Insurance Survey) showed the uninsured rate had dropped to 3.7 percent.
