Today we released a report examining migration patterns into and out of the state using Census and Internal Revenue Service data.

The report found that Vermont’s domestic and international in-migration is not significant and is insufficient to keep pace with the deficit of deaths to births in the state, contributing to the state’s demographic problems. Further, the report found that people leaving the state historically have generated more income than those moving into the state, however this reversed (at least temporarily) during the pandemic.

We believe the report shows that there are real demographic issues that our state is facing and that policymakers should be focusing on availability of housing and rebalancing our incentive programs to target specific occupations that are critical to our social infrastructure. Prior to the pandemic, the only age groups with net in-migration were 26-45 year olds (+208), but the numbers were not large enough to offset the number of people under the age of 26 who were leaving (-507). Further, the report found that only 4% of Vermont’s population is comprised of immigrants, compared to and average of 14% nationally. The demographic challenges in Vermont are not improving and we believe the inaccessibility of housing is preventing more young people from moving here or staying here.

At the same time we are looking for investments to change our demographic trajectory, it is unclear how mobile high-income earners are in a post-covid world and policymakers should proceed with caution when considering additional revenue from these taxpayers. Adding tax surcharges for the wealthy, as some legislators have suggested, does not seem to be the answer as there are real questions about tax flight and what impact that may have on our overall tax base that our critical state programs rely on.

The report author, economist Art Woolf, found that recent Census and IRS data needs to be used and interpreted with care since both underlying sources of migration data were likely influenced by temporary population movements due to the Covid pandemic. Some examples of this were provided in the report. Woolf encouraged policymakers to examine longer term trends for a better look at any patterns of migration in and out of Vermont by age and income groupings instead of looking at one-year snapshots. This is particularly true during the pandemic timeframe when migration patterns departed from their historical trends.

The full report can be found at CampaignForVermont.org.

On behalf of Vermonters,

Ben Kinsley
Interim Executive Director, Campaign for Vermont