From the law:<p>> (3) The Agency shall award grants under the Program on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to available funding, as follows: (A) not more than $125,000.00 in calendar year 2019...<p>With such a small budget, it seems like the actual intent may have been to allocate up to $125K to generate advertising about their state.<p><a href="https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2018/Docs/BILLS/S-0094/S-0094%20As%20Passed%20by%20Both%20House%20and%20Senate%20Unofficial.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2018/Docs/B...</a>
For many, this won't even begin to offset the increase in income and property taxes from this notoriously high-tax state. Individual or business, you're likely to pay more.<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/gallery/smallbusiness/2012/10/15/state-taxes/4.html" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/gallery/smallbusiness/2012/10/15/state-...</a><p>>>The income tax has a top rate of 8.95%. This ranks as the sixth-highest in the U.S., although it only applies to taxpayers making over $413,350 per year. Meanwhile, total state and local sales taxes range from 6% to 7%.<p>>>There are five income brackets. The highest marginal rate is 8.95% on any income over $388,350. That's on top of federal income taxes.<p>>>Businesses pay an effective property tax rate of 5.27%, the third highest in the country.<p>>>At 6%, sales taxes are also on the high side. Meanwhile, those businesses that pay corporate taxes get hit with an 8.5% rate for any profit made above $25,000.
I've lived in Burlington, VT for the last two years, having moved from a large city.<p>The brain drain is real. I am leaving the state soon because I simply cannot relate to people and culture up here. (Note, this is for people who are < 35. There are a lot more >35 year olds up here with families who I never met). There's an inverse bell curve of age distribution.<p>I've discovered slightly above average intelligent people up here think they are much smarter than they are, due to the people/coworkers they are surrounded by. I've only met three highly intelligent people in my two years here. Two of them are also leaving within a year.<p>It's a shame, because Burlington is easily the most beautiful city I have lived in. Bike trails boarder the lake and outdoor recreation are all within an hour's drive.
The produce up here is the best I've had (like wow, can't go back good). The restaurant cuisines up here are diverse and plentiful (although the quality is lacking for some reason). Everything is so green up here. The weather is usually great.<p>It's a place to retire and maybe raise family, if you can handle the snow. Otherwise, if you're a younger adult with drive and ambition, you will not enjoy your stay.
I was raised in Vermont, and moved away to the Philly area for college, and stayed here because the job opportunities are so much greater in East coast metro areas.<p>Vermont is very insecure about its ability to "hold on" to its young people. Probably for a good reason, because the majority of young persons who remain in the state after high school are the ones who <i>only</i> graduate from high school.<p>I'm interested to see how this scheme works for the state. I'd assume their goal is to bring college-educated young persons to the state.
Vermont is a wonderful natural bucolic place to live.<p>Unfortunately, I discovered the hard way that the problem they are trying to solve is likely far more intractable than that program.<p>I co-founded a software/networking biz in VT some years ago. We really thought it was great, loved the lifestyle -- e.g., literally step out the door at lunch for a run or mtn bike in the woods, or walking meetings in the fields or woods -- just awesome!<p>We thought it'd be easy to convince others to come up and grow with us.<p>Wrong.<p>Ultimately had to move to north of Boston, then grew & sold.<p>I really wish more people would 'get it', but it just didn't work that way. Seeing that socialization seems paradoxically more city-oriented now despite far better connectivity tech, I'm even less optimistic now about it.<p>I really hope I'm wrong and they can kickstart a tech-in-the-woods common lifestyle... and at least with this program, a few dozen people will enjoy some great years there!
> Vermont has budgeted grants for about 100 new remote workers in the first three years of the program and about 20 additional workers per year for every year after<p>So only 33 people will access this opportunity for next year. And we have to assume these will be very young people who intend to stay there and repopulate the state?
I can't resist. We are here with tech jobs waiting.<p><a href="http://www.greenriver.com/jobs" rel="nofollow">http://www.greenriver.com/jobs</a><p>Edit: On the article: COL is similar to Boston in Brattleboro (for the nice lifestyle that we expect as devs) but in different areas. You need a car for any real transportation and while rents and house prices are less other things are more (internet, heat, etc). There are 3-4 cafes not hundreds. There is a surprising amount of art and theater events and you discover that folks do some amazing things here in the woods. e.g. Parts for the Mars Rovers were made 100ft from my desk. My kids can take circus classes from former Circ du Soleil leads down the street. As a kid I took ski jumping lessons a mile from here from a Olympic medalist. And folks have weird job histories. The woman who runs the stables where my daughter takes horse back riding lessons was a developer on HP-UX in the early days
This sounds more like a publicity stunt than an actual attempt at solving the problem.<p>Having said that: I've been to Vermont in the Fall, and it. is. stunning.
Article title is misleading. They're offering reimbursement for incurred expenses, not paying people.<p>State is offering to cover costs of computer hardware, internet, co-working rental space, and relocation. (Max $5k/yr)
Reading through these comments, especially about Burlington reminds me that everything is relative.<p>Coming from a relatively rural area, Burlington appears to be thriving, tech savvy and a wonderful place for a young person. I went to school there in the late 90's and just recently visited with my kids and was blown away by the growth outside the city downtown. My wife and I both were intrigued at the idea of living there and wondered if the town/city could support our small business.<p>However, reading comments from those used to Boston, San Fran or even those who have lived IN Burlington paints a very different picture.<p>I think if you're coming from a rural area, Burlington is a massive upgrade. However don't expect big-city tech infrastructure or any sort of comparable startup scene if your benchmark are the East/West tech hubs.
$10,000 is less than what Silicon Valley firms will cover just for relocation. I guess if you're thinking of doing it anyway, it could push you over the edge. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have lived in VT my entire adult life, and worked in tech/design. Ever couple of years I sit down and end up doing a comparison to see what it would be like to live in say the Bay area or Seattle. It usually comes out the same. I work remotely and know a bunch of other people who do it as well. It's totally doable (though bandwidth penetration to rural area's still sucks and is highly variable.). If you like Vermont, and can handle long winters it's great place to live, work and play.
This is great. I was really excited until I realized that you have to be a US citizen. I'd be happy to skip the $10,000 if I could get a work permit or a green card.
Lots of hills and low population density. I bet it is hard to get good internet in Vermont. Universal access to broadband would matter more than anything else.
This is interesting. I'm hearing more and more examples of cities are pulling out more and more stops to attract people. Maybe I was just ignorant about them before.<p>Free land if you move to the Yukon to do farming:
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-farming-landrights-idUSKBN1AA27M" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-farming-landrights...</a><p>And then there's Shenzhen's peacock plan to attract foreign experts for high-tech startups, 6 figures USD for individuals who meet certain criteria, and millions USD for teams: <a href="http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/08/01/incentives-shenzhen-attracting-foreign-talent.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/08/01/incentives-she...</a>
I'm a University of Vermont alum, and worked there for several years after college.<p>The IT (and "professional") economy is quite weak. There's a couple bigger web companies, however I know at least one of the biggest off-shores development.<p>Otherwise, a lot of the professional economy is just satellite of the tourism industry.<p>I read recently the superintendent of Burlington schools (Burlington being the big city in Vermont where the university is located) was traveling to China to help recruit high school students.<p>It's a beautiful, mostly rural place - but it's not surprising these initiatives are being taken.
I've been waiting to see programs like this pop up for a while. Remote workers are an economic dream for whatever region they end up in. They bring in large amounts of money from outside the area, spend it locally, pay local taxes, leave local jobs available for other residents, and generally put less strain on the local infrastructure since they're not commuting.<p>It's basically a win from every angle, and I'm surprised more cities and states don't already have programs like this one.
Remote workers are the golden goose for local governments. Working from home means they aren't commuting, so no increased peak demands on roads or transit. And they are all 20-somethings who don't need healthcare nor have school-age children. Like crypto-mining, remote workers sit quietly in their rooms. Feed them electricity and internet and they generate tax dollars. It's all a myth. Such people do not exist.
Hi I’m interested, I work for USDA I can work at any of the agencies possibly remote, I’m fully bilingual I have a MPA. My email ariettearana@yahoo.com
(sob)<p>I just moved for my wife's job. We really like Stowe and wanted to end up close by.<p>(I'm tired of moving and won't move again.)
honestly $10000 is not a lot of money these days to make someone move to a different state. Make it $50,000-100,000 in tax credits and people will consider. They have to be more aggressive with their offer in order to have any decent amount of response.<p>$10000 does not even buy you a decent cheap car.
People seem to be taking for granted that this is a good thing. In the short term of course attracting highly paid people is a good thing. In the longer term it's only a benefit if you're the kind of person who looks at Boston and thinks it's a good, highly functional society.<p>Most of northern new England looks at Boston/MA and sees high cost of living, government that micromanages individuals and lots of crime. Having lived in various places in MA (including Boston) as well as NH, VT and ME I'm inclined to agree. Boston has jobs and nothing else.<p>Ask people who grew up in NH, VT, ME what kind of people make the place worse and they won't say baby boomers with backwards beliefs, blacks, or bigots, they'll say "Massholes."<p>Just from living among and talking to people in ME/VT/NH states you'll quickly get the sense that it's not the material difference that make them like the place but the cultural ones. Many people choose to live in ME, NH and VT specifically because they do not have the same busybody, sort of socialist culture (cut me some slack, it's a nebulous and hard to pin down difference) as MA.<p>Trying to be culturally like Boston will be the death of these states. Seriously, they're biggest industry is tourism and part of the selling point is culture and image. Part of the "branding" of northern New England is that it's a land of freedom compared to MA. You can buy beer at the grocery store, light off fireworks without cops showing up and park a project car on your lawn without your neighbors trying to get the town to bend an obscure and irreverent by law to harass you. Whether these differences are material or not doesn't matter, they're part of the branding. If people wanted to go vacation in the woods and wanted to do it in MA they could head west on I-90. If people wanted to go to the beach and do it in MA they could do it on the south-coast or cape cod.<p>I could go on and on and on about how to the people in NH/VT/ME the culture is more important than the money, sure they want money too but you'd be hard pressed to find someone from one of those states that thinks any amount of money or economic development is worth letting the place turn into MA.<p>Yes I know that a lot of you might not be able to relate to this sentiment at all but encouraging people from MA to move to NH/VT/ME is a very thorny subject for most people in NH/VT/ME<p>I get that ~30-something people per year isn't much but it's the sentiment of "we should be like Boston because money" (which is a prerequisite to "we should be an attractive place for people with money from Boston to relocate) is dangerous (yes I know there's nothing stopping people who are from northern New England but suffering through living in MA because that's where the jobs are from taking advantage of this program). I think the focus should be on retaining talent, not importing it.<p>To all the people mentioning that the CoL in Vermont is fairly high for how rural it is, well you can thank NY for that. Upstate NY and VT have their CoL inflated by all the NYC money that wants to have a vacation home or retire away from the problem. Pretty much any "tourist" destination that an upper middle class couple with kids can drive to for a weekend will have this issue. Look at housing land prices in ME and driving time to Boston for example.
Northern New England will have to get its heroin problem under control before it will be appealing to the “remote programmer moving to rural area for peace and quiet and lower cost of living.”