Vermont’s Minimum wage rose to over 14$ an hour for the first time on January 1st, 2025. We reported on that give to the Granite State here. It turns out the State of Maine was already meddling in that range as it just raised its rate on J1 from $14.15 to $14.65 per hour.
First, thank you. Your persistent adherence to progressive social engineering continues to be a boon to us in New Hampshire, where we do not pretend to know what an hour’s worth of labor should be in any occupation. We let the market, employers (their union, but we’re working on that), and job seekers decide. They then agree to private arrangements based on their interests, skills, and supply and demand.
As I pointed out in the Vermont update, two weeks ago, New Hampshire’s traditional wage labor occupations, on average, were already earning more on average per hour in 2024, which applies to Maine’s meddling.
And New Hampshire isn’t taking taxes out of your paycheck.
That isn’t very comforting for Vermonters, but it’s proof of something. That a minimum wage doesn’t define the cost of value of labor, supply and demand does that. I should note that I could not find something similar at the VT dept. Of Labor, so I may be making assumptions. It’s possible that regardless of the regulated state-mandated minimum wage, employees in these occupations make more already, which would tell us the minimum wage is a meaningless virtue signal.
Minimum wages are outdated social engineering that serve little purpose but to make the unskilled unemployable, which would make the 20th-century eugenicists proud. That’s what they wanted. The least skilled could end up with fewer hours or be unemployed.
That last sentence is worth revisiting because that was the purpose behind imposing mandated minimum wages in the first place. The progressive social engineers may not like that truth, but in the modern age, there’s one they may dislike more. Job creators consider these mandates when deciding where to open a shop or move their business. An environment with fewer regulations or mandates, all other things being equal, is far more inviting even if the prevailing wage is higher.
New Hampshire has also been lowering its business taxes and revoked a tax on interest and dividends from investment income effective January 1st, 2025. The Granite State is also the most economically free state in the US and the northern hemisphere for the sixth year in a row.
That competitive advantage continues to grow when states like Maine and Vermont use state power to manipulate decreasingly free markets. It has other benefits as well. Lower poverty, higher standard of living, and better health outcomes.
So, again, thank you, Maine. It’s a beautiful state with wonderful people, but if they don’t stop voting for Democrats, they’ll join Vermont, circling the toilet bowl of higher taxes and declining economic opportunity. Good for New Hampshire but not much different from the rest of New England.
