Research & Publications

The long arm of DOGE reaches into Vermont

More than 3,000 Vermonters are caught in the on-again, off-again firings and layoffs of federal employees by the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It is challenging to keep track of who has a job and who doesn’t, or even of which departments still exist.

During the first two months of Trump’s second term, DOGE ordered mass layoffs of federal agency employees. Federal judges reinstated the workers in 19 agencies, including the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and temporarily paused firings. But uncertainty remains as to whether the reinstatements will hold and how long the pause will last—if, that is, the administration complies with the court orders.

Low-paid workers stretched to meet basic needs

A recent report by the Joint Fiscal Office shows that Vermont’s 2024 livable wage was nearly $19 an hour—exceeding the state minimum wage by almost $5. Vermont defines livable wage as the hourly earnings necessary for a single person working full time and living in shared housing to meet their basic needs. The gap was the largest in a decade, making it harder for workers to make ends meet.

State of Working Vermont 2024

Vermont has one of the highest gaps between wages and costs in the country. This mismatch leaves many Vermonters struggling to afford their basic needs.

The state has made some improvements on affordability in recent years, but in other areas policies have fallen behind. Targeted investments would make a big difference for Vermont families’ economic security. In fact, under Vermont statute, the purpose of the state budget is to address Vermonters’ need for health, housing, dignified work, education, food, social security, and a healthy environment. And Vermont has the resources to honor these obligations and make the state more affordable.

The latest State of Working Vermont Report analyzes U.S. Census and other data including costs, income, and wages to look at how Vermonters are doing and pinpoint the areas where the state can make reasonable policy improvements to help more all residents afford to meet their basic needs.

Gladdish tidings: Incomes rose, but so did unemployment

Vermont total personal income rose to $43 billion in 2023. Adjusted for inflation, that was an increase of 6 percent over the previous year, the highest among the states.

Personal income, a key economic indicator, includes salary and wages, business income, interest and dividends, government benefits such as Social Security, employer retirement contributions, and other income. It does not include capital gains.

Personal income is an aggregate measure; it doesn’t tell us how individuals are faring. But Vermont also scored well in 2023 on a measure that does. Census data released in September showed a rise in Vermonters’ median household income of 5.4 percent, after adjusting for inflation—also the largest percentage increase in the country. Half of households earn less than median, and half earn more.

New businesses created the lion’s share of jobs in 2023

Vermont added about 1,600 net new jobs during the 12-month period ending March 2024. Almost 70 percent of those jobs came from new businesses.

After a record rise in the wake of the pandemic, the pace of job growth slowed, especially among existing private sector employers, with the biggest decline taking place during the year that ended in March 2024.

Public programs lifted 3,000 Vermont kids out of poverty

New Census data offer proof that federal and state governments can significantly reduce child poverty. Almost 9 percent of Vermont’s kids lived in poverty, according to the three-year average of the federal official poverty measure for 2021-2023. However, the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)—which factors in state and federal government programs such as universal school meals, food and utility assistance, and the child tax credit—came in 3 percentage points lower, at less than 6 percent for the same period.

Vermont’s median income and workforce both grew

Vermont median household income rose to $81,211 last year—a 5.4 percent increase, after adjusting for inflation. Half of Vermont’s 280,000 households earn less than the median and half earn more. The rebound followed a drop in real income—that is, a loss of buying power after adjusting for inflation—in 2022.

Vermont unemployment is falling by all measures, not just the official one

Vermont’s official jobless rate hit record lows last year as the state continued to recover from the pandemic. That is also true for the broadest measure of unemployment, called U-6, which counts people who have dropped out of the labor force and those who are underemployed. U-6 averaged 3.9 percent for 2023, Vermont’s lowest in 20 years, tying with South Dakota for the lowest rate in the country.

The unemployment rates reported every month count only people who are out of work and actively looking for a job. But there are others who would like to work but have stopped looking, as well as part-time workers who would like more hours. These underemployed workers make up the bulk of people not captured in the official jobless rates.

Vermont’s average wage masked county disparities

Vermont’s average annual wage rose 3.7 percent in 2023, to nearly $62,000. But the wage in 12 of the state’s 14 counties came in below that average. Chittenden County, which held a third of the state’s jobs, showed the highest average annual wage: $70,269. Washington County, another large employment hub, was second, at $64,682. A little over 44 percent of Vermont‘s jobs were in either Chittenden or Washington County, so wages there had a big effect on the state average. The lowest average annual wage in a single county lagged far behind the state average: $47,479 in Essex County—though the county made little impact on average wages because it had the state’s smallest share of jobs. No county in Vermont met the national average of roughly $72,000.

More Vermonters are working, and fewer jobs are vacant

Vermont employers have been steadily filling unfilled jobs. It’s been a challenge because of Vermont’s low unemployment rate. At times, there were as many as three job openings for each person looking for work.

Nevertheless, employers have succeeded in finding workers to fill the vacancies. In January 2023, employers had just over 332,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, 7 percent of them unfilled. In April of this year, there were almost 330,000 nonfarm jobs, and the share that were unfilled had dropped to 4.5 percent.

Vermont was among three states with the biggest drop in the job opening rate from March to April—nearly a full percentage point. The state showed the lowest percentage of unfilled jobs in New England in April. Nationally, the job opening rate was 4.8 percent that month.

More Vermonters are working than ever before

Vermont had 3,900 fewer jobs in 2023 than before the pandemic in 2019. But according to newly released data from the Vermont Department of Labor, the losses have not been evenly distributed. In fact, five Vermont counties showed net gains from 2019 to 2023, while the other nine saw net losses. Between 2022 and 2023, all Vermont counties saw job growth, ranging from 23 jobs in Essex County to 1,791 in Chittenden County. The state gained 5,500 jobs that year.

Vermont employment and income are highest ever

Vermont personal income grew by 5.5 percent in 2023—to $43 billion total—the fastest growth in New England and slightly faster than the U.S. as a whole. The major components—earnings, dividends, interest, rent, and transfer payments—all increased, with transfer payments seeing the strongest growth. Transfers include Social Security, unemployment, medical (including Medicaid and Medicare), and other income from government sources. Personal income does not include capital gains.

State of Working Vermont 2023

Big challenges confronted Vermont in 2023. Much of the state was inundated by the second “100-year” flood in a dozen years. Meteorologists recorded 2023 as the hottest year on record. New variants of Covid kept arising, and pandemics are predicted to become more frequent. Problems we faced before Covid are still with us: poverty, food insecurity, shortages of affordable housing and childcare. And the pandemic seems to have made some problems worse, such as inadequate mental health services, especially for children.

Steph Yu to House Ways and Means on State of Working Vermont 2023

A presentation by Steph Yu to the House Ways and Means Committee on the State of Working Vermont 2023, April 4, 2024

The labor market—and Labor—start 2024 on the upswing

Vermont saw more than a 20 percent increase in the number of workers represented by unions in 2023. Union representation—meaning both union members and nonmembers covered by union contracts—rose to 46,000 in 2023 from 38,000 the previous year, the biggest increase in at least a decade.

From 2018 through 2023, the share of Vermont workers covered by union contracts rose to 15.4 percent from 11.6 percent. That moved Vermont into seventh place among the states, by percentage of coverage. Hawaii leads the country, with more than a quarter of workers represented, while the U.S. as a whole comes in at 11.2 percent, about 16 million workers.

Jobs and employment return to pre-pandemic levels

Total nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 2,000 in January, topping 311,500 for the first time since March 2020. But the mix of jobs has changed. Jobs in the Professional and Business Services sector have increased by nearly 4,000. Meanwhile, the numbers in the Private Education and Health Services and Leisure and Hospitality sectors remain below their January 2020 levels—falling about 2,700 and 2,300 short, respectively.

More Vermonters are working and looking for work

During the post-holiday spike in Covid cases, many working Vermonters have probably needed sick time. But not all of them have it. A recent report from the Center for Law and Social Policy shows that while Vermont is one of 15 states with paid sick leave laws, access here varies by income level and job status.

Low-wage workers and part-time workers are less likely to have sick leave: 27 percent of those in the lowest quarter of the income scale lack access, compared with 8 percent at the highest end. And three in 10 part-time Vermont workers cannot take time off when they’re ill. But Vermont workers are still better off than their counterparts in most states: Four in 10 low-income workers across the country do not have sick leave, and 44 percent of part-time workers are not covered.

Vermont’s workforce is growing, but not fast enough

Vermonters continued to find work in recent months, and at the start of the year employers filled jobs at a record pace. But Vermont still has more jobs than people to fill them.

According to the most recent reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vermont workplaces had 2.7 jobs openings in October 2023 for every unemployed person—that is, someone without work who is actively seeking it. That ratio was down slightly from the summer months, but an increase over October 2022. Vermont’s ratio of job openings to job-seekers was nearly double the U.S. ratio in October.

Vermont jobs and employment keep rising

Vermont’s private employers are making up for lost time. In the wake of the Covid pandemic, they’ve added jobs at a pace not seen since the 1990s. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vermont employers created more than 29,000 jobs from March 2022 to March 2023. That came on the heels of over 32,000 jobs added from March 2021 to March 2022. Jobs increased by about that number each year in the 1990s. But the pace lagged in the 21st century: From 2001 through 2020, the private sector added an average of about 23,000 jobs annually.

More Vermonters are finding jobs, fewer driving to work

The Covid pandemic shaped Vermonters’ commuting habits. According to new U.S. Census data, nearly 15,000 fewer workers commuted daily in 2022 than did so before the pandemic. Almost 80 percent of those pre-pandemic commuters drove alone. The Census data also show nearly 56,000 Vermonters working from home last year, up from nearly 23,000 in 2019.

Vermonters may be sliding back to their old ways, however. Commuting alone inched up and remote work inched down in 2022 as compared with 2021, when Covid was regarded as more of a threat. If Vermonters continue to forgo getting in their cars, that might reduce greenhouse gas emissions—and the pandemic might have done a bit of good for the climate.

Workers in eight counties can get disaster unemployment insurance

In the hardest hit parts of Vermont, flood recovery will take some time. But the federal disaster declaration for Caledonia, Chittenden, Lamoille, Orange, Rutland, Washington, Windham, and Windsor counties makes resources available immediately.

The outlook is improving for Vermont job-seekers

There was good news on the jobs front in 2022, according to data just released by the Vermont Department of Labor. Last year, the state counted over 9,000 net additional jobs covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI). 1

Every county except Franklin saw growth. This was the second record-setting year in a row; Vermont added more than 8,000 jobs in 2021. In the previous two decades, Vermont had never gained more than 4,000 jobs in a single year.

The increase brought the average number of UI-covered payroll jobs to 301,066 in 2022, still about 9,600 jobs shy of the 2019 pre-pandemic level. Vermont was one of 23 states that by 2022 had not recovered all jobs lost during the pandemic. Still, total U.S. covered payroll jobs in 2022 exceeded those in 2019.

Vermont’s economy grew, job openings fell

Vermont’s economy grew 2.8 percent, after adjusting for inflation, in 2022—the second year of growth after a drop in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. Data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the end of March show that Vermont’s gross state product—the total value of all goods and services—saw the highest growth rate in New England.

In 2022 Vermont’s gross state product also surpassed $40 billion for the first time, a rise from 2021 of more than $3.5 billion in unadjusted dollars.

Celebrate 20 years of fighting for a just and thriving Vermont!

Over the past 20 years, our deep experience, timely, reliable data, and clear, accessible analysis has driven major policy improvements for Vermonters, from expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, to raising the minimum wage, and making school funding more equitable for all our kids.

In honor of our twentieth anniversary this year, we’ll be celebrating our past wins and inviting more people to get involved in our work.

Post-pandemic, Vermont businesses rejiggered telework

More Vermont businesses have become all-remote workplaces, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But fewer allow hybrid arrangements, where some employees work from home some of the time.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, about 30 percent of Vermont businesses—accounting for more than 150,000 workers—expanded opportunities for their employees to work from outside the office. As vaccination increased and the risk of COVID subsided, companies reassessed their telework policies.

According to the BLS, the number of establishments where all employees work remotely all the time increased about 40 percent from 2021 to 2022. Meanwhile, other businesses appear to have cut back on telework. The number allowing a mix of in-office and remote work dropped by a third.