Fewer Newcomers Call Vermont Home

Since the early 1990s, when the IRS started tracking migration and income, people moving to Vermont have consistently reported higher average annual incomes than the Vermont residents who were leaving. ¹ The most recent data for 2010 shows that trend has continued. ²

The numbers of people coming and going over the past 18 years have seesawed. For 10 of those years more came; for eight, more left. But since the peak of inmigration in 2001, when a little more than 17,000 people relocated to the state, the number of newcomers has been declining. And since 2005, the number of Vermont residents moving out each year has exceeded the number of new arrivals.

Those coming to the state still have higher average incomes. So, even in years when out-migration has exceeded in-migration, the total personal income in the state has increased.

In 2010, however, that changed. Vermont saw a net loss of income for the first time since the IRS began to publish this data. According to the latest report, 13,422 people moved into Vermont in 2010. Their total adjusted gross income was $353.9 million. The same year, 14,071 Vermonters moved away. Their income added up to a bit more: $356.3 million.

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1.  The IRS reports the number of income tax returns filed each year and the number of exemptions, including dependents, that are taken on those returns. The number of exemptions is considered to be a close approximation of the number of people who are moving into or out of Vermont. So “exemption” means “person” in this report. There may be additional people moving into or out of Vermont who have not filed an income tax return or who have not been claimed as an exemption on a filed return.[↩]
2.  The numbers presented in this report involve the change from one year to the next. The data labels reflect the most recent year of the two (e.g., data labeled “2010” refers to the change from 2009 to 2010).[↩]