New Report: Recession’s Toll on Vermont is Worsened by Earlier Policies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 27, 2010

MONTPELIER- A new report by Public Assets Institute highlights the toll taken by the Great Recession and Vermont’s failed efforts at job creation leading up to it. The state’s immediate task is to respond to the crushing downturn and provide jobs for thousands of people who are out of work through no fault of their own. But Vermont also needs to re-examine its strategy for sustainable job creation, because current policies, especially business tax breaks, are not working. Even before this recession, Vermont was having its worse decade on record for creating new jobs.

The report, “State of Working Vermont 2010,” recommends that Vermont return to the kinds of public investments that have been shown to strengthen the economy and provide working Vermonters the tools they need to support their families and prosper.

“We are all aware of the hardship created by this recession,” said Paul Cillo, president of Public Assets Institute. “But what no one has been talking about is how poorly Vermont was doing before the recession. Where job creation is concerned, this has been the worst decade in Vermont since the Department of Labor started keeping records in the late 1930s.”

Other key findings of the report:

• Real median household income in Vermont was lower in 2009 than it was in 1999.
• From 2008 to 2009, unemployment increased nearly 50 percent among Vermont men.
• Vermont has lost 13,500 private sectors jobs since the start of the recession.
• Vermont’s private sector is providing 10,000 fewer jobs than it was 10 years ago.

Public Assets Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes sound budget and tax policies to benefit all Vermonters. Additional information is available at www.publicassets.org

– 30 –