A new report shows that median income Vermonters saw their earning power erode in the last decade as costs for health care, child care and college continued to rise. Meanwhile, job growth has declined somewhat.
Public Assets Institute, a left-of-center think tank based in Montpelier, released its annual analysis of state economic trends last week. The State of Working Vermont report tracks jobs, wages, poverty rates, government benefits and health care costs.
Vermont has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 5.2 percent, but that statistic masks a disturbing trend: In the decade from 2001 to 2011, the private sector saw no new jobs, according to the report. “There were about 5,500 fewer private sector jobs in 2011 than in 2001,” the authors, Jack Hoffman and Paul Cillo, wrote.
Vermonters also saw a decline in wages. In 2001, the median household income was $53,407, adjusted for inflation; in 2011 that figure was $52,776.
Can political leaders do anything to turn the lackluster job creation numbers around? Not really. Nor can they have much impact on wages, the authors of the report say.
“Still, policymakers can do more than they’re doing for Vermonters and the economy,” Hoffman and Cillo write. “A state can make itself conducive to job creation by investing in public structures like transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, good schools and health care, a clean environment, and public safety—that is, by becoming a desirable place to live and work.”
The institute also recommends that the state expand initiatives like the People’s Budget initiative, shift toward a Genuine Progress Indicator, and make good on its commitment to reform Vermont’s health care financing system.
