by Dave Fidlin, for The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The number of working Vermont adults age 25 to 54 has declined since the pandemic’s onset, according to a recently released report.
Analysts with Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit public policy organization, stacked up states’ working-age employment rates from the first quarter of 2020 and compared them to the first quarter of 2023.In the report – authored by Pew researchers Joanna Biernacka-Lievestro, John Hamman, and Page Forrest – 24 states were found to have lagging employment rates in what has been described as the “prime working age” cohort of the labor market.
With a 2.8% decrease in the three-year comparison, Vermont was among the half of the country that has been in decline.
According to the report, 84.2% of Vermont’s prime working-age adults participated in the workforce in the first quarter of 2020. Three years later, the rate declined to 81.4%.Explaining the basis for the report and its findings, Biernacka-Lievestro, Hamman and Forrest said a diminished labor market can have several negative consequences.“
Changes in employment rates can affect both sides of a state’s budget ledger,” the report says. “More people without jobs typically translates into higher demand for government services and reduced tax revenues.”
Vermont currently outperforms the national unemployment rate in all age groups, based on statistics from state officials.
According to data from the Vermont Department of Labor, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in May – the most recent reporting period available – was 2.1%. Nationwide, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in that same period was 3.7%.In New England, Vermont notched one of the lowest unemployment rates in the summer. Only one state within the northeast – New Hampshire – outpaced Vermont, with a 1.9% unemployment rate in May.
According to the Vermont DOL’s dashboard, total unemployment insurance claims have been trending down. In the first week of July, 321 claims were filed statewide, compared to 288 claims the year prior.
Nearly half of the claims filed in the week ended July 8 were in the services industry. Construction and trades accounted for 4% and 3% of the claims filed.
In the Pew study, West Virginia notched the most significant 3-year decline – 5.4%. Utah had the highest gain from 2020 to 2023, increasing its 25- to 54-year-old workforce by 3.8%.
Categories: Business
I mean, I thought I’d live my whole life here, but it’s getting so socio-politically communist and expensive that I’m honestly thinking of moving.
BTW, ditto. Unless one is A-OK with their hard-earned $ going towards paying for multimillionaires’ kids to eat free breakfasts & lunches at school, toward financially supporting illegals & migrants from vastly disparate cultures who have no intention of assimilating – whilst long-term & native Vermonters simultaneously struggle to make ends meet, paying a “punishment” tax of up to $4.00 per gallon on your home heating oil and/or propane, paying for underage minors & prisoners to attempt to alter their genetically ordered sex while veterans of the USA have VT snap up taxes on their retirement, don’t mind watching as violent crime skyrockets & Criminals go repeatedly unpunished, a government devoid of checks & balances & a constituency which climaxes over this one-party rule, a place where slaughtering unborn babies at any stage of pregnancy is lauded……..as long as one is good with all that and more – I’d say: stay.
Communism AND Plutocracy. PERFECT TOGETHER!
Agreed 100%. I haven’t had a “real job” since being forced out in 1991 after 27+ years of service so that’s what my retirement and
Social Security are based on😰. Yet I’m supposed to support all the sick, lame & lazy that are attracted to the milk & honey etc. this state offers.
Real conservatives understand Vermont isn’t for them. Why stay here when the South is the opposite, open, and free? Best options are Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia.
How many of these include “refugees”, recently “relocated” from out-of-state social service recipients or illegal migrants? Asking for a friend, as I would never ask such questions. It’s too racist. Or sexist. Or some kind of ist.
Perhaps the rising rates of death and disability claims should be added into the equation. The number of people who walked away from careers instead of being forced to play Russian roulette with their health is another factor. The number of people displaced from closed businesses that never recovered or employees not called back. Some have simply dropped out of the Matrix to follow new endeavors that are off the books. Above all, labor statistics are skewed for the purpose to deceive and exploit. Earning wages these days is supporting an evil, corrupted beast system that needs to be defeated and destroyed. Much chatter of “where did the workers go?” My response, “where did human decency go?”
Building on the previous comments, there is something neither the CDC or any other alphabet agency are looking into, certainly not publicly; the rising number of excess deaths recognized by employment insurers in the U.S. and in other health statistics globally. All this following the covid vaccine mandates and ongoing. Read Edward Dowd’s book, “Cause Unknown” A quote from the book; “The CEO of the OneAmerica insurance company publicly disclosed that during the third and fourth quarters of 2021, death in people of working age (18–64) was 40 percent higher than it was before the pandemic. Significantly, the majority of the deaths were not attributed to COVID.”
Well…this is what happens when your state has lost it’s way. Like the others, I too am planning my escape. I am a senior who (along with the bank) owns a home. Since there are few opportunities available for seniors to move into smaller, safe and affordable housing – we continue to live in our larger than needed homes. We are trying to exist mostly on social security because whatever we managed to save is being spent maintaining the homes we can no longer physically care for on our own. It costs money for property maintenance and repairs. These are homes that could be made available to young middle class families but since seniors can’t afford or even find, safe rentals – the homes stay off the market. So it would seem that Vermont’s solution to this crisis is to price (tax) the elderly out of the state. As for the unemployment numbers – numbers can be manipulated to reflect whatever point needs to be made. Our unemployment system is a maze of rules and requirements. Case in point: In October of last year I was told that my place of employment was closing. During the time (end of October) that we were in the process of closing I was diagnosed with cancer. My surgery took place during what would have been my last week of employment. Once home recovering (under Doctor’s orders) I filed for unemployment (having been laid off). I was denied because I had become ill BEFORE applying for benefits. I appealed and was again denied because I had not looked for work while home re-covering from surgery. Evidently I was supposed to apply for work that I could not interview for – under Doctor’s orders. Didn’t matter that I had been laid off first – I had the audacity to get cancer. Yea, I really want to stay in Vermont. No wonder people are leaving – I can’t believe anyone who lives out here in the real world is the least bit surprised. Even Vermont’s beauty can no longer mask the ugliness of her politics and out of control legislators.
Well said! Unemployment “insurance” as well as workers “compensation” are not for the benefit of the worker anymore – I question if it ever was really. It is a profiteering grift made to give an illusion it is available in case of wage loss. For the amount of premiums collected by bureaucrats and large insurance carriers, many claims are denied or reduced. The process is how many hoops can I make this applicant jump through, how much stress and anxiety can I place upon an applicant who is all ready stressed and anxious? No worse entity to deal with is a bureaucrat with fake authority using money as a weapon of control and manipulation. They use fraud as an excuse. They turn employees and employers into instant adversarial litigants. The bloated, convoluted, nonsensical, “benefits” turn out to be no benefit to workers – only to the premium collectors.
Vermont is ready to implode from its wickedness and evil. Very sad, as a Native Vermonter, to see this state sink into such depravity. The list of people wanting to move and are moving out of this state is growing larger with each passing day. God will not be mocked. Woe to the evildoers who do not repent of their wicked ways.
I would leave, but I am not w/ nothing, because of what has happened in the state , with health, politics and all the “virtue signaling about their LACK of diversity and inclusion.” You know the real racism that has existed in VT since the libs took over in the 80s. Or is it just an ” ISM.” Put your own spin on it. We (our kind, the normals) seem to never fit in with truth, fairness and decency. This state now represents all the things they say they are against but are really for and promoting it. How long before some sexual deviant attacks my wife or based on the news reports, me Or better yet I call the cops and get shot …in the back. No if I can figure a way we are gone too, problem is now with Obiden in office and Scott, a nutured tool, no place is really safe anymore.
“Earning wages these days is supporting an evil, corrupted beast system that needs to be defeated and destroyed.” Exactly Melissa!
And Anon, you’re absolutely right “Even Vermont’s beauty can no longer mask the ugliness of her politics and out of control legislators.”
Sad situation. I’ve actually seen instances where another business owner was working in a restaurant as wait staff because businesses cannot get workers. How are the non-workers earning money? They are not all standing at shopping center entrances and on busy intersections with signs asking for money.
“More people without jobs typically translates into higher demand for government services and reduced tax revenues.” Careful, you can get into trouble stating obvious facts about human behavior. The Vermont Legislature never rests coming up with new ways to give away free goods, services and money, and big surprise, deadbeats will take advantage and more deadbeats keep moving here to take advantage. One single election could turn this malaise completely around, but most Vermont voters have been brainwashed to believe in this phony compassion. When you subsidize something or someone, you get more…why do you think we have so many junkies here?
Ïhowmmany people are saying “I only want 20 hours or lees, so I don’t lose my benefits.