WSJ - the migration is over ? VT going backwards again
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Re: WSJ - the migration is over ? VT going backwards again
People Finally Flocked to Vermont. It Didn’t Last.
The state’s struggle to keep working-age people is threatening its economy
The rural New England state saw an influx of domestic newcomers after Covid-19 struck, but that trend was short-lived.
The rural New England state saw an influx of domestic newcomers after Covid-19 struck, but that trend was short-lived.
By Jon KampFollow
| Photographs by Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for WSJ
Feb. 9, 2025 5:30 am ET
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Vermont’s pandemic booster has worn off.
The rural New England state saw a surge in newcomers from other states after Covid-19 struck five years ago, fueled partially by city-dwellers who could take newly remote jobs to the less-congested Green Mountains.
But these trends were short-lived, hindered by what prospective and former residents say is a frustratingly tight housing market. Remote-only work has faded from pandemic highs. And the Census Bureau estimates Vermont has reverted to pre-Covid ways: losing more people to other states than it gains.
This slow exodus is an economic challenge, since the graying state needs to recharge its labor force and help pay the bills.
“We desperately need more working-age people,” said Kevin Chu, executive director at the Vermont Futures Project, a nonpartisan organization that promotes the state’s economic growth.
Vermont’s return to old patterns could be a warning for other rural areas that also saw pandemic-era boosts. Additional census data in the coming months will show nationwide migration numbers in more detail, beyond recently released state-by-state estimates from last year.
Vermont will need up to 36,000 new homes by 2029 to meet demand, according to a recent state housing assessment.
Vermont will need up to 36,000 new homes by 2029 to meet demand, according to a recent state housing assessment.
Those numbers suggest a broader national reset from Covid-era distortions. Net losses have slowed in places such as California and New York. Net gains in some states, like Florida, have shrunk. At the same time, international immigrants have come to represent the vast majority of national population growth.
Vermont faces challenges that have bedeviled rural areas for decades: how to hang onto young people and draw in new residents? Cash-strapped towns in and around rural America are feeling the pinch from aging populations and struggles to recruit needed workers.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What should states facing population decline do to attract new residents? Join the conversation below.
At least briefly, Vermont was a destination after the eruption of Covid-19 five years ago. The state added a net positive of nearly 4,900 people through domestic migration in the 12 months ending in mid-2021, according to Census Bureau estimates, breaking a long streak of losses. The next two years also saw positive numbers, though smaller. Net domestic migration is the difference between people who leave for, or come from, a different state.
Then came the 12 months ending in mid-2024, which showed a net loss of about 500 domestic migrants.
Jeff Nelson and husband Paul Mahan left Vermont for good in October, resettling in the San Diego area. They already had California ties, but said disillusionment with Vermont’s struggles to grow or better manage costs weighed against keeping a foothold there.
Jeff Nelson and Paul Mahan, as seen at their Vermont farm, left the state for good.
Jeff Nelson and Paul Mahan, as seen at their Vermont farm, left the state for good. Photo: Jeff Nelson
Both have also run Vermont businesses and said they struggled to find workers.
“We really began to feel that Vermont as a state was going in the wrong direction,” said Nelson, 63.
The state already had a housing shortage before Covid-19 struck, following years of slow development. Then the brief surge of newcomers inflamed the problem.
Typical home values in the state’s small metro areas are up between about 46% and 50% in the past five years, according to Zillow. That is similar to U.S. increases, but big changes for a small state that lacks a big-city job market.
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Robert Morris and his wife started thinking about buying a house and leaving their Burlington apartment when she became pregnant shortly before the pandemic. But the region already seemed overpriced, and then Covid pushed prices yet-higher, Morris said.
They left in 2022 for the Chattanooga, Tenn., area. “I was struggling to live up there,” he said of Vermont.
A recent state housing assessment estimated Vermont will need up to 36,000 new homes by 2029 to meet demand, curb homelessness and replace houses lost to issues such as flooding. This is far above the state’s recent construction pace.
Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, is pushing the legislature to build on recent housing efforts and tackle unaffordability. “This cost, and a shortage of units, drives people out of Vermont and prevents families and workers from moving here,” he said in his January inaugural address.
Vermont is challenged by having the nation’s lowest fertility rate and one of the oldest populations. It added about 2,000 newcomers from international immigrants last year, but isn’t a major immigration destination.
Between 2020 and 2023, the state’s population of working-age adults shrank while its senior population boomed, according to the Vermont Futures Project.
High rent costs prompted Sam and Ashley DiMercurio to move their family to Myrtle Beach, S.C.
High rent costs prompted Sam and Ashley DiMercurio to move their family to Myrtle Beach, S.C. Photo: Ashley DiMercurio
Stymied by high rental costs, Ashley and Sam DiMercurio and their two children left Vermont for Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the pandemic’s second year.
“If somebody handed me a house in Vermont tomorrow, I would move back in a heartbeat,” said Ashley DiMercurio, 41, who has an online tutoring and educational consulting business.
Sam’s sister Kate DiMercurio and her husband, Neil Shah, managed to nab a Vermont home in 2023 while moving up from Brooklyn, settling in the town of Hinesburg.
They said they were fortunate to have support from two solid remote-working careers. Shah is an engineer who works as a product director for a Canadian company. Kate DiMercurio, currently caring for their baby, has an online health coaching business she can return to.
The housing search wasn’t easy, Kate DiMercurio said. Even though local prices were cheaper than Brooklyn, they were still a bitter pill for the Vermont native.
“I know what this house would have cost five years ago, she said.
Companies calling employees back to urban offices limits how many more remote workers Vermont can attract. “I don’t work with the same volume of buyers that are like ‘I work with XYZ company out of Boston and I’m just going to work remotely,’” said David Parsons, a realtor in the Burlington area.
Kate DiMercurio and Neil Shah, who both have remote-work careers, relocated from Brooklyn to Hinesburg, Vt., in recent years. He is an engineer, and she is currently caring for their baby and has an online health coaching business she can return to.
Vermont hasn’t ceased recruitment efforts, but the legislature has stopped funding a program that dangled financial incentives to lure movers, said Lindsay Kurrle, secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Commerce and Community Development. The state has to get its economic house in order by growing the housing stock, she said.
Allison Krcma, a 30-year-old mental-health therapist in Colorado Springs, has been looking for work in Vermont and is eager to relocate with her husband. Both are Air Force veterans.
One concern for Krcma is that potential salaries are below what she makes now or has seen in other states. Meantime, she said she keeps hearing the same warning from prospective employers.
“They say be prepared for an insane housing market,” she said. “It’s super discouraging.”
Prospective and former residents say Vermont has a frustratingly tight housing market; a new development is going up in Jericho, Vt.
Prospective and former residents say Vermont has a frustratingly tight housing market; a new development is going up in Jericho, Vt.
Write to Jon Kamp at Jon.Kamp@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the February 10, 2025, print edition as 'Vermont’s Population Boom Fizzled Fast'.
Show Conversation (887)
The state’s struggle to keep working-age people is threatening its economy
The rural New England state saw an influx of domestic newcomers after Covid-19 struck, but that trend was short-lived.
The rural New England state saw an influx of domestic newcomers after Covid-19 struck, but that trend was short-lived.
By Jon KampFollow
| Photographs by Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for WSJ
Feb. 9, 2025 5:30 am ET
Save
Share
Text
887 Responses
Explore Audio Center
Vermont’s pandemic booster has worn off.
The rural New England state saw a surge in newcomers from other states after Covid-19 struck five years ago, fueled partially by city-dwellers who could take newly remote jobs to the less-congested Green Mountains.
But these trends were short-lived, hindered by what prospective and former residents say is a frustratingly tight housing market. Remote-only work has faded from pandemic highs. And the Census Bureau estimates Vermont has reverted to pre-Covid ways: losing more people to other states than it gains.
This slow exodus is an economic challenge, since the graying state needs to recharge its labor force and help pay the bills.
“We desperately need more working-age people,” said Kevin Chu, executive director at the Vermont Futures Project, a nonpartisan organization that promotes the state’s economic growth.
Vermont’s return to old patterns could be a warning for other rural areas that also saw pandemic-era boosts. Additional census data in the coming months will show nationwide migration numbers in more detail, beyond recently released state-by-state estimates from last year.
Vermont will need up to 36,000 new homes by 2029 to meet demand, according to a recent state housing assessment.
Vermont will need up to 36,000 new homes by 2029 to meet demand, according to a recent state housing assessment.
Those numbers suggest a broader national reset from Covid-era distortions. Net losses have slowed in places such as California and New York. Net gains in some states, like Florida, have shrunk. At the same time, international immigrants have come to represent the vast majority of national population growth.
Vermont faces challenges that have bedeviled rural areas for decades: how to hang onto young people and draw in new residents? Cash-strapped towns in and around rural America are feeling the pinch from aging populations and struggles to recruit needed workers.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What should states facing population decline do to attract new residents? Join the conversation below.
At least briefly, Vermont was a destination after the eruption of Covid-19 five years ago. The state added a net positive of nearly 4,900 people through domestic migration in the 12 months ending in mid-2021, according to Census Bureau estimates, breaking a long streak of losses. The next two years also saw positive numbers, though smaller. Net domestic migration is the difference between people who leave for, or come from, a different state.
Then came the 12 months ending in mid-2024, which showed a net loss of about 500 domestic migrants.
Jeff Nelson and husband Paul Mahan left Vermont for good in October, resettling in the San Diego area. They already had California ties, but said disillusionment with Vermont’s struggles to grow or better manage costs weighed against keeping a foothold there.
Jeff Nelson and Paul Mahan, as seen at their Vermont farm, left the state for good.
Jeff Nelson and Paul Mahan, as seen at their Vermont farm, left the state for good. Photo: Jeff Nelson
Both have also run Vermont businesses and said they struggled to find workers.
“We really began to feel that Vermont as a state was going in the wrong direction,” said Nelson, 63.
The state already had a housing shortage before Covid-19 struck, following years of slow development. Then the brief surge of newcomers inflamed the problem.
Typical home values in the state’s small metro areas are up between about 46% and 50% in the past five years, according to Zillow. That is similar to U.S. increases, but big changes for a small state that lacks a big-city job market.
Under 14
15–24
25–49
50–64
65 and older
0%
50
100
Robert Morris and his wife started thinking about buying a house and leaving their Burlington apartment when she became pregnant shortly before the pandemic. But the region already seemed overpriced, and then Covid pushed prices yet-higher, Morris said.
They left in 2022 for the Chattanooga, Tenn., area. “I was struggling to live up there,” he said of Vermont.
A recent state housing assessment estimated Vermont will need up to 36,000 new homes by 2029 to meet demand, curb homelessness and replace houses lost to issues such as flooding. This is far above the state’s recent construction pace.
Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, is pushing the legislature to build on recent housing efforts and tackle unaffordability. “This cost, and a shortage of units, drives people out of Vermont and prevents families and workers from moving here,” he said in his January inaugural address.
Vermont is challenged by having the nation’s lowest fertility rate and one of the oldest populations. It added about 2,000 newcomers from international immigrants last year, but isn’t a major immigration destination.
Between 2020 and 2023, the state’s population of working-age adults shrank while its senior population boomed, according to the Vermont Futures Project.
High rent costs prompted Sam and Ashley DiMercurio to move their family to Myrtle Beach, S.C.
High rent costs prompted Sam and Ashley DiMercurio to move their family to Myrtle Beach, S.C. Photo: Ashley DiMercurio
Stymied by high rental costs, Ashley and Sam DiMercurio and their two children left Vermont for Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the pandemic’s second year.
“If somebody handed me a house in Vermont tomorrow, I would move back in a heartbeat,” said Ashley DiMercurio, 41, who has an online tutoring and educational consulting business.
Sam’s sister Kate DiMercurio and her husband, Neil Shah, managed to nab a Vermont home in 2023 while moving up from Brooklyn, settling in the town of Hinesburg.
They said they were fortunate to have support from two solid remote-working careers. Shah is an engineer who works as a product director for a Canadian company. Kate DiMercurio, currently caring for their baby, has an online health coaching business she can return to.
The housing search wasn’t easy, Kate DiMercurio said. Even though local prices were cheaper than Brooklyn, they were still a bitter pill for the Vermont native.
“I know what this house would have cost five years ago, she said.
Companies calling employees back to urban offices limits how many more remote workers Vermont can attract. “I don’t work with the same volume of buyers that are like ‘I work with XYZ company out of Boston and I’m just going to work remotely,’” said David Parsons, a realtor in the Burlington area.
Kate DiMercurio and Neil Shah, who both have remote-work careers, relocated from Brooklyn to Hinesburg, Vt., in recent years. He is an engineer, and she is currently caring for their baby and has an online health coaching business she can return to.
Vermont hasn’t ceased recruitment efforts, but the legislature has stopped funding a program that dangled financial incentives to lure movers, said Lindsay Kurrle, secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Commerce and Community Development. The state has to get its economic house in order by growing the housing stock, she said.
Allison Krcma, a 30-year-old mental-health therapist in Colorado Springs, has been looking for work in Vermont and is eager to relocate with her husband. Both are Air Force veterans.
One concern for Krcma is that potential salaries are below what she makes now or has seen in other states. Meantime, she said she keeps hearing the same warning from prospective employers.
“They say be prepared for an insane housing market,” she said. “It’s super discouraging.”
Prospective and former residents say Vermont has a frustratingly tight housing market; a new development is going up in Jericho, Vt.
Prospective and former residents say Vermont has a frustratingly tight housing market; a new development is going up in Jericho, Vt.
Write to Jon Kamp at Jon.Kamp@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the February 10, 2025, print edition as 'Vermont’s Population Boom Fizzled Fast'.
Show Conversation (887)