As of July, the average hourly wage for private employment in New Hampshire was $26.22, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In February, New Hampshire recorded its highest average hourly wage on record, $26.89. (The Federal Reserve data show New Hampshire wages regularly peaking in […]
Every time you pay your electricity or heating bill, you’re lighting your money on fire. That is, you’re trading money for the energy released by burning some combustible material — natural gas, home heating oil, wood pellets, etc. So in effect, you’re burning your money. That’s OK, it’s how a market economy works. You don’t […]
New Hampshire Public Radio reported this week on a study showing that rural New Englanders pay a higher percentage of their income on energy. This isn’t really new information. But it was a slow news week and the report’s recommended solutions seemed written to get NPR listeners to spill their morning coffees from their pledge […]
How many lumberjacks live in New Hampshire? Given the debate over Gov. Chris Sununu’s vetoes of two bills to further subsidize the state’s forest products industry, it’s an important question. No one seems to know the answer. Supporters of the two bills, Senate Bills 365 and 446, say the subsidies would save 900 jobs. Sometimes […]
Labor Day weekend is a time for last trips to the beach, first trips to apple orchards, and getting into heated political arguments over the role organized labor in the 21st century. Ah, autumn. This is the first Labor Day after the U.S. Supreme Court’s famous June 27 Janus decisionin which the court held that […]
New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine are so white that if a map of the United States were colored according to the skin pigmentation of its residents, Northern New England would look like a snow-covered peak. We could go as a ghost for Halloween without even dressing up. And that’s a potential problem. Some New Hampshire business […]
The top two contributors to the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., in this quarter are public-sector labor unions: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Each union has given Rep. Kuster $5,000 this quarter (not 5,000 quarters). And until June 27, each […]
Economic progress, like progress in any field, cannot be achieved by freezing the status quo in place. Government attempts to do so result only in delaying rather than advancing progress. Following Gov. Chris Sununu’s June 19 veto of two bills to subsidize New Hampshire’s biomass power plants, three of those plants announced that they were […]
Making exceptions to general rules can seem harmless or even essential in the moment. When exceptions are made to achieve a short-term goal, the argument is that this one little violation of our collective standards or norms will quickly fade into history and everything will soon return to normal. Life doesn’t always work that way. […]
Three renewable energy bills awaiting action by Gov. Chris Sununu are in conflict with the state’s revised 10-Year Energy Strategy, which the governor championed in April. A veto of these bills would be consistent with the state’s energy plan and with the governor’s goal of fighting increases in New Hampshire electricity rates. Letting the bills […]