Vermont was not among the states that pushed the national unemployment rate below eight percent last month. File art
Montpelier — Vermont was not among the states that pushed the national unemployment rate below eight percent last month, according to a special report by the Vermont-based Public Assets Institute.
Paul Cillo of PAI, with an office in Montpelier, announced the completion of the report Oct. 22. The report, he said, shows that Vermont’s joblessness didn’t drop along with the rest of the nation, but it still remains low.
“Vermont was not among the states that pushed the national unemployment rate below eight percent in September,” Cillo noted in a recent news statement. “We saw an uptick in unemployment last month. Meanwhile, Vermont is in the spotlight as the only state where median household income increased in 2011. Unfortunately, it was lower in 2011 than in 2007, before the recession started. That's like working for four years without a raise.”
He also noted that, “The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked up to 5.4 percent. That’s partly because more people are looking for work—a fact that also increased the number of people who are employed.”
The jobs report shows that there has been a minor increase in the number of non-farm jobs, however, no new private-sector jobs were created in the state during September.
“Joblessness rates dropped in 41 states,” according to the report.
As new U.S. Census data indicates Vermont’s median household income increased in 2011, it also shows that median household income—after adjusting for inflation—is actually 2.3 percent lower than it was in 2007, before the 2008 recession started.
“That’s like working four years without a raise,” Cillo said.
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