Letter: Vermont's Economy Is Broken
Wages don't match high cost of housing, food, transportation and healthcare
By Jess Frey
Hinesburg resident
Dear Editor,
I’m done being told to “work harder” in a state where the numbers prove the system is failing – especially for kids.
I have a healthy three-year-old, and like countless Vermont parents, I am doing everything right. I work. I budget. I plan. And still, stability feels out of reach. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult in Vermont needs about $25 an hour just to cover basic necessities – housing, food, transportation, health care – and nearly $50 an hour for a single parent with one child. That’s survival, not comfort.
The Vermont Department of Labor tracks hundreds of occupations. Only a small fraction pay anywhere near a living wage. Most working Vermonters are funneled into jobs that cannot support basic life here, no matter how hard they work. This isn’t just a wage problem. It’s an availability problem, a pay problem, a housing problem – a system problem.
Near Burlington, simply covering rent, groceries, and utilities often requires close to $90,000 a year. More than half of Vermont renters are cost-burdened, spending over 30 percent of their income on housing. One car repair, one medical bill, one childcare emergency can tip a family into crisis.
People love to judge. “Get a better job.” “Budget better.” “Stop making excuses.” But when full-time work still doesn’t pay enough to live here, that isn’t personal failure. That is systemic failure.
This isn’t abstract. It’s parents crying in their cars. It’s kids growing up under constant stress. If full-time work doesn’t pay enough to live here while others keep raising rents for profit, this isn’t an economy – it’s exploitation.
Vermont doesn’t have a work ethic problem. It has a greed problem. Until we choose people over profit, nothing changes.
Sharp breakdown of Vermont's affordability crisis. The $25/hour for basic needs versus actual job availability gap is the data point most people ignore when they throw out "work harder" platitudes. My brother's family in Burlington dealt with this exact math problem three years ago, where even dual incomes couldn't bridge teh gap between what jobs paid and what living actually cost. The systemic framing is key here, its not about individual choices when the market fundamentals are this misaligned.