AKA The “Primary” State
New Hampshire is most well know for its…. Ummmm….. hmm. New Hampshire is the most important…. Ummm….. Can someone help me start this?
Oh yeah, New Hampshire is most well known for being that state that becomes important (to the media) once every four years when presidential candidates come to town to pretend this state is politically significant for a month for presidential primaries. New Hampshire should actually be proud of this the same way Delaware should be proud of their interesting tax laws which incent corporations to locate there. If you don’t have a bunch of land or large population to support an economy, create inventive methods to bring money to the state. Primaries bring millions of dollars in revenue to New Hampshire with every election, so more power to em.
But New Hampshire has other means of getting people to come to the state. It’s beautiful. In the fall the entire state practically turns yellow and orange. Scenic drives through the mountains and hiking trails are popular destinations for New-Englanders looking to escape the city. In the winter there is plenty of skiing to be had and the spring and summer months are cooler than most other areas of the country and attract more tourists getting out of the heat. Tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry in New Hampshire. If you like being outside, whether it be at a lake, in the woods, or on the slopes, New Hampshire has it for you.
Not to worry about New Hampshire, they’ve got more than just pretty oaks to look at. New Hampshire, like much of the Northeast, has a manufacturing sector that produces many of the things that make everyday life possible. Such examples are electric equipment, rubber, and plastic products. Like most states, they initially lost many of these positions to cheaper labor in the south, and eventually cheaper labor overseas.
The US is a big place, and even though New Hampshire is small in size they still have plenty of space for agriculture. Thanks to animal products such as dairy, cattle, and eggs and produce like apples, the primary state has a farming base that should endure for the foreseeable future.
But you can’t rely on tourism, dwindling manufacturing, and farming to support and economy. New Hampshire has you covered again. Financial services, private health care, and law firms also make significant contributions to the local economy. Dartmouth College, an Ivy League institution, ensures that some of our nation’s most prominent politicians, business leaders, engineers, and physicians all have ties back to New Hampshire.
New Hampshire is fortunate to not be as sensitive to the global economy as other states. With unemployment well below the national average (currently 6.9% vs 9.6%) the local governments can continue to make more reliable budget decisions based on expected tax revenue. On that note, it should be pointed out that New Hampshire has no sales tax and no income tax. Instead, residents pay one of the highest property taxes in the country. The fact that state legislatures have resisted the temptation to tax the sales on tourism shows an astounding amount of fiscal constraint.
In summary, New Hampshire is not a very well known state to most of the US. If you asked someone to name all the states and they left off 10, New Hampshire would probably be one of them. But not being well known has as many pros as it has cons. They aren’t in the news for awful layoffs, there are no scandals of financial ruin, it’s just a bunch of people that have “Live Free Or Die” on their license plates enjoying the beautiful outdoors. And with one of the highest per capita income levels and low energy usage New Hampshire may be one of America’s best kept secrets.
 By The Weakonomist |
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I live in NH, and I didn’t even know all of that. Glad to see somebody giving my state some love. Beautiful it is, but not a great place for the 20-25 crowd unless you are into hiking or other outdoorsy stuff (luckily, that is the case for me). Biggest attraction around southern NH is the 24 hr wal mart in my town. In any case, glad to see somebody else knows what New Hampshire is.