During the pandemic, Vermonters report being more lonely, but less stressed about their personal finances, and significantly more trustful of their state and local governments, according to new research on Vermonters’ well-being.
A study by the University of Vermont Center for Rural Studies surveyed over 1,500 Vermonters in June, three months after the beginning of the state’s stay-home order, about issues of well-being, from psychological and physical health to time balance, social connectedness, financial stress and work lives.
“This research comes out of a movement to utilize indicators that go beyond traditional economic indicators like gross domestic products, unemployment rates and poverty levels,” said Michael Moser, who conducted and analyzed the research. “This goes beyond that and looks at other domains of people’s lives.”
The study was first conducted in 2013, then again in 2017. But in March, when the pandemic began to reach into every aspect of Vermonters’ lives, the researchers thought it was time for another survey.
“We realized what we had here was a unique opportunity to look at the direct impact of these aspects of well-being in the time of COVID,” Moser said.
The study found that the number of Vermonters who reported feeling “no or low stress” about their finances saw a huge spike — from 39% in 2017 to 58% in 2020.
Vermonters’ trust in local governments also saw a huge spike, more than doubling from 2017 (26%) to 2020 (53%).
But it wasn’t all good news. The percentage of Vermonters who reported feeling “somewhat or very anxious” increased from 32% to 58% during the pandemic, the percentage of people feeling “somewhat or very unhappy” grew from 13% to 25%, and loneliness also took a big jump.
“There was an interesting relationship between people feeling better about their finances, but still not feeling good about a lot of things in their lives during the pandemic,” Moser said. “One policy action is really helpful, but it doesn’t address a lot of these other needs.”
Moser said while many of the social and emotional impacts of the pandemic weren’t surprising, the data they saw on personal finances was quite the opposite.
“We were thinking really narrowly,” he said. “We were thinking about unemployment rates; we hadn’t really thought about the impact of the CARES Act and the money that was put directly into people’s pockets.”
However, he noted that the study was conducted during a very specific period of time, in June, three months after Gov. Phil Scott’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order went into effect. At that time, Moser said people were still able to receive $600 weekly in federal unemployment insurance. Now that that funding has ended, Moser said he’s not sure those answers would hold true.
Moser hopes to re-up the study every three or so months throughout the pandemic to see how Vermonters’ answers change, and what that can tell them about the impact that the policies enacted by elected officials are having on real people’s lives.
Between the 2013 and 2017 studies, the data collected in Moser’s study hardly changed, which Jane Kolodinsky, head of the Center for Rural Studies, said was surprising at the time.
“We had just had this huge election, and we thought perhaps a political change might matter in people’s well-being, and it really didn’t matter; people reported being just as well off,” Kolodinsky said.
She said it took a serious public health event like the coronavirus for the research to actually see a statistically significant change.