The Vermont Department of Labor (VDOL) says the unemployment rate for Vermont is 6 percent, as of August.
However, that figure does not count those who have maxed out their unemployment benefits and extended benefits, or those who have become disillusioned or depressed and have given up looking for a job for a year or more.
It takes a closer look at other figures to get the full extent of poverty and joblessness in Vermont.
For example, the percentage of people living below the poverty level in Vermont is 10.4 percent, according to VDOL.
During the week of Oct. 9, unemployment claims rose sharply, with 162 new claims submitted.
Of the 359,648 Vermonters of working age, 12,481 are on unemployment. That's 3.4 percent of the population, which means the other 7 percent living below poverty level, have no means of income.
Michael Briggs, spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, said that Sanders often “speaks of the unemployment rate in Vermont [being] as closer to 17 percent,” when one includes people who may be working part-time and need full-time work to make ends meet.
VDOL figures Windham County unemployment at more than 27 percent, using Sanders' definition.
According to the Burlington-based Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS), Vermont has the highest rate of homelessness in New England and at least 66 percent of Vermont households do not earn enough to afford the average fair market rent.
COTS notes that the average fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Chittenden County is $1,015 – or 44 percent higher than the national average. The wages needed to afford that rent - using the generally established guide that a wage earner should pay no more than one-third of his or her income in rent - would be $19.48 an hour or $40,518 a year.
The picture is just as bleak in Windham County. According to the Department of Labor, the average wage is between $11.32 and $12 per hour. A living wage would be closer to $13.50 an hour in the county, and fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Windham County is $930, according to the Universal Living Wage website, www.universallivingwage.org.
Minimum wage in Vermont remains at $8.06.
Rising hunger
According to figures from the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger for 2009, 1 in 6 Vermont children and more than 1 in 8 Vermont households are considered “food insecure,” defined as lacking access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to a lack of money. In Windham County, 1 in 5 children fall into that category.
The recession that began in 2007 hasn't made things easier for many families. According to Steve Dale of the Vermont Department of Children and Families, between July 2007 and July 2010, recipients of various benefits have increased by the following percentages: 3SquaresVT (formerly known as food stamps), 62 percent; health care programs such as Medicaid, 25 percent; Reach Up (Vermont's name for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, formerly known as Welfare), 22 percent; home heating assistance, 36 percent; and child care financial assistance, 10 percent.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that Vermonters would need to cut back on their food stamp allowances based on their figures of declining home heating costs which figure in qualification.
Sanders, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and 13 other senators wrote Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack requesting that the allowances be maintained as they stood, stating dangerous nutrition deficits that would result. The USDA agreed, and Vermonters did not see a decrease in their food-stamp assistance, for now.
Judy Stermer, director of communications and public affairs for the Vermont Foodbank, said that the agency has “just closed the fiscal year having distributed a quarter of million pounds more food than last year.”
“We distributed more than 8 million pounds of food last month,” Stermer added. “We are seeing people who are still struggling to find work - still feeling the effects of the recession. People are starting to think about the heating season, and there is anxiety there. They're facing difficult choices and feeling the pinch even more.”
Stermer noted that Vermonters using 3SquaresVT “is up at a record high at about 87,000 participants. That's 1 in 7 Vermonters who are eligible, which is also the population that we are serving of seniors, food shelves and after school programs.”
She said some people avail themselves of the resources quickly, while others hesitate to seek help. “I think it varies,” Stermer said.
“We just had someone come into the food bank that works right next to our building, and had been looking at the food bank every day. He has needed food for a while but hasn't come to ask for help. There is still a stigma around needing food.”
“People who are living on the brink or living in poverty…do need food assistance. Connecting and deciding they can't do without it any longer is a difficult choice.”
The Vermont Foodbank distributes donated food and commodities which are federally subsidized food products at no cost.
“We run a completely separate program called the co-op food bank,” Stermer explained. “For instance, if a food shelf or meal center said they really need tuna fish, we would go out and source the best possible prices below wholesale. Everyone is reaping the benefit. We're buying cooperatively for 280 agencies [within Vermont].”
Stermer noted, appreciatively, that “we're receiving more products than ever from Vermont producers that are either gleaned or we've had donated. We've received more than 400,000 pounds of fresh produce that have made it into food shelves and meals that people wouldn't otherwise be able to access.”
“We're seeing more and more participation from Vermont businesses and producers. [The number of] low income people is expanding extremely,” Stermer said.
Local impact
Vermont Foodbank participants in Windham County have seen a sharp increase in people accessing both the food shelf and meals.
Lisa Pitcher, director of Our Place Drop-In Center in Bellows Falls, said that she and her staff think it generally takes two to four months for a person who goes on unemployment to start showing up for their food shelf and/or meals. They have seen a 16-percent increase in the number of meals prepared last month compared to the same time period last year, and she said food shelf usage is definitely up as well.
Juanita Lane, co-director of the Brattleboro-based Mercy Ministries of Agape with her husband Kenneth, provides both meals and a food shelf through the Agape Christian Fellowship at 30 Canal St.
Lane said that they have seen a 26 percent increase in people who take advantage of their meals served. “A few months ago, we were serving 30 to 40 meals. Last night, we served 67.”
Lane noted that the people who are taking advantage of the meals and food shelf are a mix.
“We know that some of those who come to us are employed,” she said, “but between the high rents, higher heating bills, the price of gas, there's just not enough left over for food. These aren't people on food stamps.”
Lane noted that the program is always running out of food and volunteers “have to run out and buy more.” She said they are always looking for volunteers.
“We have people who have to do community service helping us too,” she said.
More importantly, the need for donations of food, or money to buy it, increases weekly.
The crisis grows
Vermont may be looking at further crisis management ahead as it faces a $112 million budget deficit and state agencies, such as the Department of Corrections, continue cutting back.
Corey Gustafson of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns said that as a result of Act 157 and Act 149, conditions of release have changed for low risk offenders in that “the sole condition of release no longer is based on whether or not they have housing in place once they leave the facility.”
Rockingham Selectboard member Ann DiBernardo was concerned there may be “an increased need for our warming shelter” as a result of yet another population making its way back into Vermont's cities and towns.
However, Deputy Commissioner Lisa Menard said that “it is not in the best interest of either the offender or the communities [of Vermont] to release them without some kind of either transitional housing or housing that they have found themselves.”
“To my knowledge, as of Oct. 1, no one has been released that didn't have a [housing] place,” Menard said.
“The Legislature is well aware of the burdens to the communities,” Gustafson said, “when they are discussing cuts to address the budget deficit.”
With winter approaching, heating bills are again an issue for many Vermonters.
“If someone has just filled up their tank and are is looking at the bill wondering how they are going to pay it, they should know that if they go online, they can sign up,” said State Fuel Assistance Chief Richard Moffi. “We want to help everyone out there who needs it.”
Moffi said he has seen incremental increases in applications yearly for the past three years as a result of expanded income eligibility requirements and program changes this past year that revealed a rise of 37 percent to 27,630 applications for fuel assistance.
“We did not run out of benefits last year,” Moffi said. “We base our benefits on our projected case load and funding from the federal budget.”
He said Congress has yet to decide the level of funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and since federal lawmakers are now out of session until after the November elections, he didn't expect to know what level of funding the program would be receiving.
“Our bureaucratic partners all know the urgency with which we are awaiting the decision,” Moffi said. “In New England, winter starts early. Typically, we start releasing benefits in early November. We'll have to wait and see this year.”
Before it went out of session, Congress had not made a decision as to level funding LIHEAP [Vermont got $26.6 million last year], or cutting the funding to $15 million.
“We know what the base level benefit for fuel assistance will be,” Moffi said.
The state seems to be doing its best to support agencies that provide assistance on the many levels needed by low income Vermonters. Businesses are stepping up to support the Vermont Foodbank, and help sponsor places like the Greater Falls Warming Shelter, as Chroma Technology of Rockingham has done.
Budget cuts at the state and federal levels make providing assistance a juggling act, but statewide, agencies are working hard to make sure those who need help, get it, without exception.
As Valerie Rickert, acting commissioner of the Vermont Department of Labor, recently told the Vermont Press Bureau, “The economic recovery remains uneven and uncertain.”