New data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that 71,329 Vermonters lived below the federal poverty line in 2016 — roughly 10,000 more than in 2015. Vermont was the only state to see a statistically significant increase in its poverty rate, from 10.2 percent in 2015 to 11.9 percent in 2016.
But according to Ashley Edwards, chief of the Census Bureau’s poverty statistics branch, the latest figures may represent a return to the norm, rather than a new trend. The state’s 2016 poverty rate mirrors those from 2012 through 2014.
“If you look at the past five-year period, it actually looks like the 2015 period might be an outlier,” Edwards said. “So although this reflects an increase, it’s not statistically different than some of those earlier years.”
Vermont continues to do better than most states. Only nine had lower poverty rates than Vermont in 2016, according to Edwards. Neighboring New Hampshire had the lowest, at 7.3 percent. Mississippi had the highest, at 20.8 percent.
In 2016, the federal poverty line was drawn at an annual income of $12,228 for an individual living alone and $24,339 for a family consisting of two adults and two children.
According to Edwards, the newly released Census data provide few clues as to what prompted the rise in poverty in 2016. The state’s unemployment rate, average earnings and median income were largely unchanged.
Jack Hoffman, senior policy analyst at the Montpelier-based Public Assets Institute, said that while 2015 may have been an outlier, Vermont has seen a long-term increase in its poverty rate since before the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession. He speculated that that increase may have been driven by a stagnation in wages over the past decade.
“To the extent that there’s an affordability crisis here, it’s that people’s incomes aren’t growing fast enough to keep up with other things that are rising faster than inflation,” Hoffman said.
Last month, Seven Days reported that Vermont appears to have failed to meet a goal set in 2007 to cut the state’s child poverty rate of 12.4 percent in half over the next decade. By 2015, the most recent year for which data was available prior to the story’s publication, Vermont’s child poverty rate had actually increased, to 13.3 percent.
The new data released Thursday suggest that the state is even further from its goal than previously understood: In 2016, Vermont’s child poverty rate stood at 14.8 percent.
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Hope & Change We Thought We Could Believe In
Keep voting, Vermont. Everything’s just spectacular.
Poverty has risen here yet people on Social Security only got a lousy 3.00 increase in benefits because according to ‘COLA’ there was no increase of living expenses! That is another government group that should be done away with for not telling the truth just like all the rest of the corrupt politicians!!
Match the wages to high cost of living here and this number will drop
Also don’t the facts and figures get shared with the people who deal with Social security increases? Probably doesn’t do any good though seeing as though the feds minds are already made up!
If you tell the people the reason why this is, they’ll tell you “NO IT’S NOT”. Then they’ll keep on voting just like they have been for 20 years and wonder why it’s not getting better.
Also, don’t the facts and figures get shared with the people who deal with Social security increases? What increases!!! For yrs, SS didn’t get any cost of living increase. They got one last yr, Wow a whole $3.00. hell that won’t even buy a gal of milk.. people think you make a bundle if you’re on SS… you work all your life and paid into SS and you get crap, yet they give it to illegals who never should get it…Social Security is from the working people, not the government. The government doesn’t pay for it, but they have taken TRILLIONS from it and has no intention of paying it back. I have done a lot of research on this, and know what I’m talking about.President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935., the new Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement. The federal government is not allowed to borrow from either; any surplus from both is invested in special non-tradeable Treasury bonds.The Government has borrowed roughly 2.8 trillion from the Social Security trust funds alone. They say SS will run out of money 2030. if it runs out it’s because of the Government borrowing from it to pay for stupid things which they have no right to touch it.
Vermont likes to tote itself as a tourist state. That being the case then hospitality workers, ski area staff and shop keepers must make up a good percentage of the work force. Therefore, their wages drive the average income number. The answer is not to raise the minumum wage but to bring higher paying jobs to the state by not promoting the tourism sector but drive the technology sector. We need businesses that “can” pay higher wages and not business’ that are forced to pay higher wages.