Upper Valley Economic Snapshot

By Jon Greenberg on Wednesday, July 8, 2009.

NHPR’s Jon Greenberg has started traveling around the state to talk with groups about the economy. It’s part of our project, Working It Out, where you are invited to tell us how this economy looks through your eyes. Jon met with a small group in Hanover and has this snapshot of what they are seeing in the Upper Valley.

The popular view is that the Upper Valley has escaped the worst of the recession. The Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and a number of strong companies keep chugging along. But on the Working It Out interactive map, a guy in Lebanon who goes by the nickname Harry notes that layoffs have begun to touch even some of those Rocks of Gibraltar of the local job market.

Judging from this sample of voices from people in town government and social service agencies, you have to look at the Upper Valley with an eye for nuance.

BORNE: My name is Marilyn Borne and I’m the selectwoman for the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, and one of the things that the board is concerned about and has noticed over the past twenty four months, is almost a tripling of tax liens on individual homes. We took three pieces of property in 2008 through a tax deed, and as the state downshifts costs to towns and the tax burden increases, we expect to see a huge increase and it’s very troubling. It is a very painful experience to have to take somebody’s home through a tax deed and we’ve had to do it twice.

HADLOCK: I’m Julia Hadlock; I’m the executive director of Upper Valley United Way in Lebanon, New Hampshire. What I see is people are making choices and really discriminating what’s a need and what’s a want. And they’re making choices about the things that they want and they’re diverting money that they might spend on a vacation or a wedding or a new car, and they’re sending that money to organizations that are providing needs to people who really, desperately need them and that’s the upside of what’s happening in the economy, is people are being much more thoughtful about how they’re living their lives and I think that’s really a positive thing that hopefully will carry out even as the Economy improves.

COPALENSKI: I’m Sarah Copalenski with the Upper Valley Haven and we are seeing folks coming to the food shelf who have never needed to use resources like those before in their lives. They’re scraping together every penny to pay their mortgage, and have nothing left for food. We had not seen that until the last two months, but we have been seeing it now each week and we don’t have any reason to think that this is going to stop anytime soon.

That was a few voices from the Upper Valley. Most economists are predicting a slow recovery in the months ahead.

For NHPR News, I’m Jon Greenberg.