Julia Curry has made a fine life for herself in Vermont since coming here more than 25 years ago.
She first worked for a labor union, and for nearly two decades since with affordable housing cooperatives. Those jobs paid enough that she was able to buy a home in Burlington.
Now 62, Curry worries for others in her neighborhood, like the working class families across the street, or the college students next door. Curry knows she couldn’t afford to buy her own home at today’s prices. What about them?
In many ways, Vermont has been an “amazing” place to live, Curry said. But she’s unsure whether that’s still true.
“Things have changed around us drastically,” she said. “It's really the cost of living and the dim prospects for that getting meaningfully better over time.”
Curry’s ambivalence about the opportunity available in the Green Mountain State is reflected in the latest Vermont Public poll. The survey asked more than 800 respondents if they thought an 18-year-old resident should stay or leave the state in order to build a successful life and career.
It’s the third time the organization has asked this question since 2019. This year’s results are the gloomiest.
About half of respondents said they would advise a young person to look outside Vermont, up from 42% in 2022 and about the same as it was in 2019.
But the proportion of people who are optimistic about the prospects for young adults shrank. Just 23% of respondents said they would recommend a young person stay — down from 36% in 2022 and 35% in 2019. The remaining quarter said they’re unsure, more than ever before.
The data indicates that confidence among the Vermont faithful appears to be wavering.
The results may reflect growing unease with the enormity and complexity of today's problems, suggested University of Vermont social geographer Cheryl Morse.
“People are just generally in a state of, ‘I'm not sure what's going on in our world, and what was certain to me, or felt secure to me in the past, has shifted,’” Morse said.
Some trends within the poll data have remained consistent. More than 70% of Republican-leaning respondents said they would advise a young person to leave, while Democrats were split evenly between the three categories. (53% of independents advised a young adult to leave, while 31% said they were unsure.)
Adults over age 65 were slightly more optimistic about Vermont, as were respondents with a four-year college degree.
There were no significant differences based upon region or gender, according to the poll.
Know before you vote
Get roundups of our latest Vermont election coverage in your inbox.
The trajectory of poll results concerns Kevin Chu, a pro-growth advocate who directs the Vermont Futures Project.
Chu believes the responses reflect broader concerns about affordability.
The attitudes mirror real trends, Chu noted, such as the fact that Vermont retains fewer high school graduates for college than any other state, or that states with lower costs of living are welcoming more new residents.
Chu worries, though, that people are becoming too quick to write off Vermont as a place for economic opportunity.
Chu remembers being told that his home state would be a bad place to find a job after college. But the 35-year-old notes that Vermont consistently has more jobs than job seekers. Less competition can lead to more opportunities for career advancement for professionals, he said.
Curry and two other poll respondents who agreed to be interviewed for this story drew a clear distinction between the financial prospects of settling in Vermont and the social or personal benefits of living here.
“I’d want them to stay,” said 69-year-old Bob Lance, of Northfield. “It’s a slower lifestyle. Not so hectic.”
But only if they can find a decent job. “It’s got to be something that they can come back to,” he said.
Two of Lance’s adult sons live out west. The third is in the military.
In Burlington, Ursula Lopez-Palm said starting a family in the city has been “idyllic.” She walks her 3-year-old child to daycare at the YMCA and enjoys the combination of small-town feel and “city amenities.”
“It just is a beautiful place that is approximate to nature and is well positioned for climate change,” the 36-year-old resident said, “with people who are trying to build strong communities in the wake of a little bit of a dystopian future.”
Lopez-Palm moved to Burlington in 2022 with her husband, who had grown up there before starting his career elsewhere. Both worked remotely in tech jobs, she said, which allowed them to buy a home in the Old North End while she was pregnant with their first child. She has since quit her tech job to pursue a goal of publishing children’s books.
She’s hopeful that her children will one day decide to stay in Vermont. But Lopez-Palm, who said her personal politics broadly align with the progressive New York City congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is aware of the “admissions price” that her family paid to get here.
“We cut our teeth in a different place, and were able to buoy our own economic prospects elsewhere before moving here,” she said.
And for that reason, Lopez-Palm said she advised the 18-year-old to leave.
