2 days Ago By NH Fiscal Policy Institute
As 2025 gets underway, the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute rounded up 10 fiscal facts to help inform the Granite State’s public policy conversations in the New Year. The poverty rate, using the Official Poverty Measure , held steady at 7.2 percent in 2023 .
That figure represented about 98,000 Granite Staters with incomes below poverty-level thresholds , including about 20,000 children under 18 years old and 21,000 adults age 65 years or older. During the 2021-2023 period, approximately 42,300 New Hampshire households, or 7.4 percent of households, were food insecure.
This was an increase from 2019-2021, when the state’s 5.4 percent food insecurity rate was lower due to pandemic-related federal aid to households. As measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure , which adjusts for tax credits and certain other factors, child poverty was reduced by half in New Hampshire during 2021, but rebounded in 2022, according to the most recent data.
Poverty among adults age 65 and older also rose sharply. During 2024, N.H.
buyers paying the median statewide single family house sale price ( $515,000 for Jan-Nov 2024), an average 30-year mortgage interest rate, an average property tax rate, and a 5 percent downpayment, would owe a mortgage payment of about $4,000 per month . Key caregiving occupations had lower earnings than N.H.
occupations overall. Assuming full-time employment at the median hourly wage, 2023 earnings were $49,980 for all occupations, but $32,490 for child care teachers and $34,420 for home health and personal care aides. The current State Budget expanded access to Child Care Scholarships, boosting the amount of aid for families to access and afford child care.
Between December 2023, the month before implementation , and September 2024, enrollment increased 38 percent. Preliminary data suggest there have been fewer New Hampshire job openings per unemployed worker on average in 2024 than in 2023 or 2022, and the size of the labor force increased. However, there were still about two job openings for each unemployed worker in September 2024.
After falling behind living costs in 2022, median household income in New Hampshire grew faster than inflation in 2023, reaching about $97,000 . This increase brought inflation-adjusted median household income to about the high reached in 2021. Immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic, net migration from Massachusetts to New Hampshire increased.
However, the latest data suggest the inflow was reduced by more than half in 2023 , while New Hampshire continued to be a net exporter of residents to Maine. Revenue growth following the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily due to rising national corporate profits, has subsided . Combined General and Education Trust Funds revenue was 8.
9 percent lower through November than it was at this time last fiscal year. Nicole Heller, Senior Policy Analyst, Jess Williams, Policy Analyst, and Phil Sletten , Research Director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute We don’t spam! You're on the list! Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription..
