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Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

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Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#161
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not going to make anyone move to a cabin in the woods. But if you have already decided to move to a cabin in the woods, it might make you pick Vermont over New Hampshire.

Vermont has higher property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. If $10k can sway you, you're very short-sighted.

Whether $10k can sway you says nothing whatsoever about your wisdom. It is one factor in a multitude. Some people will like Vermont enough for other reasons that this is sufficient motivation. Other people will never have thought about it and this offer will make them start to do so. Some of these will fall into the first camp.

Even if your only consideration is your income, tax rates are a very small part of this. If you pay no local taxes but have to hire someone to clear the snow and blowdowns off your road, you're still out that money. If you have no town water or sewer, you have to pay someone to provide and maintain those services. Very few people consider only tax burden when choosing where to live. If that were so, people would be flocking to Kansas instead of San Francisco.

The larger point, though, is that some people will be closer to the decision boundary and $10k will move the boundary far enough to put them over.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#163
post #25

Vermont is a wonderful natural bucolic place to live. Unfortunately, I discovered the hard way that the problem they are trying to solve is likely far more intractable than that program. 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 w…

Try one of the towns along the southern Connecticut River valley. You're a couple of hours from Boston. You can take the train the NYC. You have urban/college town amenities and culture if you want it. You can walk to nature if you want it. The schools are good. The traffic is good.

CT is experiencing a similar flight of taxpayers (particularly milliennials). Companies that have been there for decades are leaving for other states. Hartford is on life support and verging on bankruptcy.

CT is not the place for starting a modern tech company.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#164
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I was surprised by this: > 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. Vermont lost 10,000 working-age residents over the past five years.[1] This plan will (in theory) recover just ~1% of that. Maybe they're monitoring reactions to this announcement before they put more money into the program?…

With skiing in the east an industry in rough shape since it doesn't snow anymore, and agriculture in a slow death spiral, Vermont is trying to embrace it's potential as a bedroom community for NYC and Boston. Burlington is a cool little city and the countryside is beautiful as well. If they can use a small program like this to stimulate some cadre of "pioneers", they'll get alot of value, and perhaps some improved ou…

> With skiing in the east an industry in rough shape since it doesn't snow anymore

I'm not sure where you are coming up with that. In fact many places in the NE have have multiple top 10 all time snowfalls in the last 10 years.

Climate change is expected to increase the precipitation in New England, particularly in the winter and the temperature increase can result in more snow due to the increased ability of the air to hold moisture. In general we'll probably have better skiing for the next few decades at which point snow _may_ start to be replaced with rain, depending on how high the temp goes where you happen to be.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have skied in Vermont, don't do that, it's just white ice, any fall can be dangerous.

From the West Coast? Vermont has the best East coast skiing. I’d put it in the bottom quartile of West coast skiing. It isn’t bad at all, but it will never compete with the Rockies.

From the French Alps. But it's really a climate issue, the nights are just too cold, everything freezes.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stowe has co-working spaces. Hudson County NJ doesn't have those (not really). Crazy.

Hoboken has a couple. I used to live in Edgewater (not Hudson County, though), they opened one right as I moved to upstate NY.

I know Hoboken has one or two at least, but I'm North Bergen so closer to Edgewater than Hoboken!

I can actually (and have) walked to Edgewater.

I was definitely not being completely honest, but there is an insane number of people in Hudson county, it's surprising there aren't offices for corworking spaces. But I guess because of the demographics and most people absolutely not being in tech is the answer.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vermont has higher property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. If $10k can sway you, you're very short-sighted.

Whether $10k can sway you says nothing whatsoever about your wisdom. It is one factor in a multitude. Some people will like Vermont enough for other reasons that this is sufficient motivation. Other people will never have thought about it and this offer will make them start to do so. Some of these will fall into the first camp. Even if your only consideration is your income, tax rates are a very small part of this. I…

Kansas is a world away from San Francisco (geographically and socially), New Hampshire shares a border.

New Hampshire still has municipal services despite much lower taxes. Of course, it varies but for someone making over $120k a year (many people in tech) the income tax is a huge lifetime burden that can likely eclipse any out-of-pocket differences.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#168
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what do you mean by “intelligent” here? What kinds of people is Vermont losing exactly?

Without writing a novel and acknowledging the difficulty it is to measure intelligence... People who: /what VT is missing is: - Can process what one is saying in real time and propose alternative view points or point out flaws in one's logic in seconds. - Are capable of thinking outside of the box. Some puzzle pieces will never be found because they need to be created first. - Have drive and ambition to do things oth…

Wow, I can very much relate to this. I moved to VT 5 years ago, and I just haven't been able to put my finger on why there's a disparity between my social life here vs. my former city.

Many people simply talk much slower, drone on, and are not socially aware of when a conversation becomes one-sided. I'm used to fast talking, quick-witted New Jersey style conversations. At work I'm often engulfed with these 5 minute lectures about random garbage that I don't particularly care for.

Re: Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely

#170
post #50

I've lived in Burlington, VT for the last two years, having moved from a large city. 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 year olds up here with families who I never met). There's an inverse bell curve of age distribution. I've discovered slightly above average intelligent people up here think they are m…

> average intelligent people up here think they are much smarter than they are, due to the people/coworkers

Does this mean you have a local job, or working remotely/commuting?

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