Charts & Infographics

Healthcare premium assistance
Everyone receiving credits will pay more for healthcare if the enhanced credits expire. Those with incomes under 400 percent of poverty would pay between .5 percent and 4.6 percent more of their income for the benchmark plan, after accounting for state assistance. Middle-income Vermonters, earning more than 400 percent of poverty, would no longer receive assistance. They would pay the full cost of their premiums if they continue to buy healthcare on the exchange.

Because Vermont has the highest premiums in the country and some of the fastest growth in costs in recent years, Vermonters will be hit particularly hard. An individual making $63,000 would pay $15,000 a year for the benchmark plan—nearly a quarter of their income. A family of four at the same poverty level could see an increase of over $30,000 a year.

Because Vermont has the highest premiums in the country and some of the fastest growth in costs in recent years, Vermonters will be hit particularly hard. An individual making $63,000 would pay $15,000 a year for the benchmark plan—nearly a quarter of their income. A family of four at the same poverty level could see an increase of over $30,000 a year.

In 2025, over 30,000 Vermonters on the exchange received an estimated total of $350 million to help cover the cost of care. Most of these funds come from federal tax credits, including at least $65 million from the enhanced credits. Vermont provides just under 2 percent of the assistance ($6.2 million). Participants range across income and age; a third are between 55 to 64 years old.

In 2025, over 30,000 Vermonters on the exchange received an estimated total of $350 million to help cover the cost of care. Most of these funds come from federal tax credits, including at least $65 million from the enhanced credits. Vermont provides just under 2 percent of the assistance ($6.2 million). Participants range across income and age; a third are between 55 to 64 years old.

Taxpayers using the exchange receive federal premium tax credits (PTCs), which are based on the cost of the benchmark silver plan and are often paid directly to the insurer. Recipients pay a percentage of their income toward the premium, on a sliding income scale, and the PTC covers the rest.

One of the main issues at stake in the federal government shutdown is the expiration of enhanced healthcare premium tax credits, which help people buy insurance through the state marketplace. If Congress does nothing, the credits will expire at the end of 2025, and millions of Americans will see large increases in the cost of their healthcare.

Among these are as many as 30,000 Vermonters. And because Vermont’s exchange has the highest premiums in the country, Vermonters will see the biggest increases. Middle-income participants are looking at an additional $10,000 a year for an individual and $32,000 for a family of four.

The federal government shutdown began on October 1st, the start of the new federal fiscal year, after existing funding expired and Congress failed to approve new funding. Until funding is restored, many federal workers in the state are furloughed (put on temporary leave) or working without pay.

Through earmarks, Vermont projects received over half a billion dollars in FFY 2022, 2023, and 2024 combined for housing, transportation, rural development, agriculture, and other areas.

Newly released U.S. Census data show that Vermont’s median annual income decreased last year to $82,730 after adjusting for inflation. While this change was not statistically significant, Vermont was one of only six states nationwide where income declined. Only North Dakota and Rhode Island saw sharper drops. This marks a departure from the income growth Vermont experienced immediately after the start of the Covid pandemic: a rise of over 8 percent between 2019 and 2021, the fastest growth in the country. Most of those gains have endured. But aside from that period, income in the state has generally stagnated. From the early aughts to 2019, income hovered around $75,000. And since 2021, it has stayed flat at around $82,000.

Manufacturing jobs have been declining for decades—and that decline has been bigger in Vermont than the nation overall.

In the last 25 years Vermont has lost nearly 20,000 manufacturing jobs, and manufacturing’s share of private-sector jobs has declined by nearly half. In July 2000, Vermont had 46,200 jobs in manufacturing—more than 18 percent of the state’s private-sector jobs. Last month the state’s 26,900 manufacturing positions accounted for just over 10 percent of jobs offered by private employers. Over the same period, the share of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. as a whole declined less sharply, from 15 percent to just over 9 percent.

Most Vermont workers’ pay has not kept pace with the growth of their output. From 2000 to 2024, productivity—total income generated in the economy per average hour of work—grew 47 percent in Vermont. But compensation—measured by the median hourly wage and benefits for production and nonsupervisory workers—rose by just 34 percent.

On July 4, President Trump signed into law the tax and spending “megabill” which makes permanent the provisions of the 2017 tax law that were set to expire and makes many additional changes beyond that. This analysis examines the tax provisions in the law and provides numbers generated with the ITEP microsimulation model.

Overall, the law favors the richest taxpayers and provides working-class Americans with relatively small tax cuts that will in many cases be more than offset by the import taxes, or tariffs.

Most Vermont counties saw an increase in jobs between 2023 and 2024, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But several were still struggling to make up the losses they suffered during the Covid pandemic. Ten of Vermont’s 14 counties added jobs last year; eight still had fewer jobs than in 2019. Rutland faced the largest gap. Even after adding 172 jobs in 2024, it had nearly 1,500 fewer jobs than before Covid. Windham County added the most jobs last year (703), followed by Washington County (484), and Caledonia County (142) was fourth after Rutland.

Vermonters may be feeling the effects of a tightening job market. Job openings in the state have fallen to their lowest level since November 2020, dropping by 4,000 positions between February and March. These openings include both full-time and part-time jobs for which employers are actively recruiting. Some of the decrease is due to employers filling positions, and some is likely due to postings getting pulled down. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed Vermonters increased over the same period, leaving fewer job openings per unemployed person. The last time Vermont had such a low number of openings per person seeking work was March 2021.

Income sensitivity thresholds have not been updated for decades. More and more Vermonters pay a combination of income and property taxes. When their incomes or house values pass certain thresholds their tax bills can jump even when school spending doesn’t change. Updating the thresholds would ensure low- and middle-income Vermonters benefit from income sensitivity.

The value of the primary residence is not a good measure of wealth.
For low- and middle-income Vermonters with mortgages, the value of the primary home overstates their ability to pay because their home equity is less than the home value. And many taxpayers have other debt so may even have a negative net worth. And at the high end, the primary residence is a small share of their wealth and understates their ability to pay.

The Vermonters with the most income don’t pay school taxes based on income.
Vermonters can pay their school taxes either based on income or on property value. For most Vermonters, paying by income is the better deal. But for higher-income Vermonters, paying by property is cheaper. While Vermonters with incomes above about $125,000 represent just 30 percent of households, they hold 60% of the total income tax base—more than $13 billion.

Low- and middle-income Vermonters are subsidizing higher-income taxpayers.
School taxes are currently regressive: Higher-income Vermonters pay a smaller share of their income to support schools than lower-income taxpayers. High-income Vermonters pay school taxes based on property because it’s cheaper for them than paying based on income like everyone else.

As more Vermonters age into retirement, will the income tax base shrink and the state get less revenue?
Two-thirds of Vermont’s baby boomers—people born between 1946 and 1964—were 65 or older as of 2024, meaning they were eligible for Medicare and retirement benefits from Social Security. But more Vermonters aging out of the workforce has not led to less income tax revenue for the state. Vermonters 65 and over have more taxable income on average than those under 65 and pay more taxes per return than younger filers.

The news this Women’s History Month is that women and men share an equal presence in the Vermont workforce. But the workforce is highly segregated by sex. Both men and women work in occupations where one sex accounts for at least two-thirds of the workers.

Many of the state’s social services, such as education and healthcare, rely on women’s labor. Women fill roughly three-quarters of Vermont’s more than 28,000 jobs in educational instruction, including tutors, librarians, teaching assistants, and teachers at all education levels. They represent a similar share of jobs in healthcare, office and administration, and social services occupations, including counseling, social work, and therapy.

Recently released IRS data from tax filings in 2022 provide new information about people moving in and out of Vermont. For the third year in a row, the state continued to see more filers enter than leave. Two of these years of growth occurred during the COVID pandemic—2021 and 2022.

Half of all filers who moved into the state in 2022 were 26 to 44 years old, an age range closely matching the millennial generation. Using exemptions as a proxy, it appears some in that age group arrived with children, but we can’t tell how many.

Notably, the state saw a net decrease in only one age bracket: filers under 26. While a couple of thousand young Vermonters left the state, about 1,800 moved in, resulting in a net drop of roughly 500 people in their early 20s—similar to moving patterns over the preceding decade. In all other age brackets—from young professionals to seniors—Vermont saw population growth from migration. But millennial filers accounted for the largest share of overall growth.