Public Assets Institute Four states, including California and Maine, saw their lowest unemployment rates on record last month. Vermont’s rate dropped to 2.8 percent—not quite a record, but close; in February and March 2000 Vermont’s rate hit 2.6 percent. California’s new record low was 4.3 percent; Maine’s fell to 2.9 percent. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment data go back to 1976.
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Two out of three
Nearly two out of three—65 percent—of Vermonters 16 and older were employed last year. That placed the state’s employment-to-working-age-population ratio second in New England and 10th among all the states. The national ratio was 60.1 percent in 2017. Still, the ratio of people working to all working-age Vermonters has been trending down for 20 years.
Fuller pockets
Over the last five years Vermont enjoyed the second-best growth in per-capita personal income in New England, after only Massachusetts, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. Nationally Vermont ranked 19th. The state’s total personal income rose to $32 billion in 2017, up from $28 billion in 2012—a 13.7 percent increase per capita, accounting for population changes. This does not mean the gains were evenly distributed, however.
Source: PAI. 3.23.2018. The Public Assets Institute supports democracy by helping Vermonters understand and keep informed about how their government is raising and spending money and using other public assets.