Vermont has a law that jacks the minimum wage up every year. Either 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower, which makes you think the Dems running the place (for the most part) would want a bit more honesty when it comes to reporting inflation, and that’s not happening (maybe Trumps DOL will have more veracity). Minimum wage Vermonters will be getting a 2.5% increase, whether they deserve it or not, from 13.67 to 14.01/hour (tipped employ rates increase from $6.84 to $7.01 per hour in 2025).
Business owners must be pleased as punch. Their parole just went up without regard to their business or the ability or productivity of staff. And unskilled workers will have a more difficult time getting work. The genius of the progressive wage-manipulating welfare state at work.
It’s a good thing Vermont’s meddling also extends to energy, making everything cost more as taxes rise.
Meanwhile, actors, the Connecticut River, we have New Hampshire—no minimum wage. The state defaults to the federal wage, which – ironically – no one makes. According to the Bureau of Labor, New Hampshire’s traditional wage labor occupations are earning more than that in 2024.
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Minimum wages are outdated social engineering that serve little purpose but to make the unskilled unemployable, which would make the 20th-century eugenicists proud.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.
The other related cost is that unions often use them to upward leverage their much higher wages, resulting in increased union dues. Yes, the rising minimum wage will likely enrich union bosses. How exciting for them.
Sorry, one more. Higher paychecks result in higher payroll taxes, though not necessarily more total tax revenue. Vermont may be shooting itself in the other foot as well.
