By Granite State Report
New Hampshire still sells itself as the “low-tax, high-opportunity” corner of New England. No income tax. No general sales tax. Business brochures and campaign mailers love that line.
But if you’re a renter in Manchester, a young family in Concord, or a retiree on a fixed income in Claremont, that slogan now feels like a bad joke. The cost of simply existing here—housing, property taxes, child care, basics—has sprinted ahead of paychecks. For a growing share of Granite Staters, “Live Free or Die” has turned into “Work More or Leave.”
This isn’t about avocado toast or personal irresponsibility. The numbers say it plainly: the system is out of balance.
The reality behind the “low-tax” myth
New Hampshire doesn’t have an income or sales tax, but we absolutely have taxes—and they’re heavy.
Property taxes are where the state hides the bill. Measured as a share of home value, New Hampshire now sits near the top nationally for property tax burden, consistently ranking among the five or so highest-tax states by this metric.(Tax Foundation)
That burden isn’t abstract. It shows up as:
- Retirees who paid off their homes but are now taxed like they’re still in their peak earning years.
- Young families who can scrape together a down payment but can’t make the math work once you add $800–$1,200 a month in property taxes on top of the mortgage.
- Towns that keep getting pushed to raise rates because the state pushes core responsibilities—especially school funding—down onto local property owners.
When you tell the world you’re “low-tax” but fund government through some of the highest property taxes in the country, you’re not actually low-tax. You’re just selectively taxed—hardest on people who need a place to live.
Housing: the market is telling people to leave
New Hampshire’s housing market has gone from tight to hostile.
According to New Hampshire Housing’s 2024 Residential Rental Cost Survey, the median monthly rent for a two-bedroom unit is now $1,833, including utilities—a jump of about 31–36% since 2019.(New Hampshire Housing) Across all rental units, the median is $1,691.(New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
Vacancy rates are basically nonexistent. A balanced rental market needs around a 5% vacancy rate; New Hampshire hasn’t seen that since 2010. In recent years, the vacancy rate for two-bedroom apartments has hovered around 0.6%—less than one open unit for every 150.(New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
On the ownership side, the median home price in New Hampshire has passed $500,000, according to data from New Hampshire REALTORS®, creating an affordability and availability crisis that hits first-time buyers hardest.(New Hampshire REALTORS)
And here’s the kicker: only about 13% of two-bedroom units in the state are considered affordable to the median renter. To afford the typical two-bedroom with utilities, a renter now needs over $73,000 a year, or 156% of the statewide median renter income.(New Hampshire Housing)
Translated from policy-speak into real life: if you’re making what the “average renter” makes in New Hampshire, the housing market is essentially telling you that you don’t belong here.
Wages are high on paper—and still not enough
New Hampshire’s median household income looks strong in national comparisons. In 2023, the estimated median household income was about $96,838, up from roughly $90,000 the year before.(New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
That sounds impressive until you stack it against the bills.
A recent analysis by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute found that, compared with 2015, a median-income family in 2025 has about $17,000 less per year left over after covering basic expenses—mostly because housing, health care, and child care costs have exploded while wages have not kept up.(The Washington Post)
In other words: we’re working harder to stand still.
“High income” is only comforting if you ignore:
- $1,800+ rent
- $500,000 homes
- Property taxes among the highest in the nation
- Child care that eats a second paycheck
- Health insurance premiums that have more than doubled over the past two decades(The Washington Post)
You can’t eat a favorable ranking on a census table. You can only eat what’s left after the bills.
Child care: the invisible second rent
If housing is the visible crisis, child care is the invisible one grinding families down.
In 2023, center-based child care for an infant in New Hampshire averaged about $17,250 per year. The average cost for both an infant and a four-year-old in center-based care clocked in around $31,868 per year.(New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
The federal benchmark for “affordable” child care is 7% of household income. New Hampshire laughs at that:
- For a single parent with median income around $46,283, infant care alone eats roughly 37% of income.(Child Care Aware)
- Even for a married couple near the state’s median for that group, infant care in a center takes close to 12% of income—and that’s before adding a second child.(Child Care Aware)
So families make impossible choices:
- One parent drops out of the workforce and loses long-term earnings, retirement savings, and career progress.
- Or both parents work and essentially hand a full paycheck over to a daycare center.
- Or they delay having children—or leave the state for somewhere cheaper.
Every politician talks about “workforce” and “keeping young families in New Hampshire.” Child care is where those slogans either become real policy or remain empty branding.
How we got here: zoning, inertia, and political comfort zones
The root of this crisis is simple: we didn’t build enough housing where people actually need to live—and we still aren’t.
Local zoning fights over density, multifamily buildings, and “community character” have quietly strangled supply for years. Many towns treat new apartments and starter homes as threats instead of necessities.
State lawmakers have started to tinker with zoning rules. In 2024 and 2025, they passed bills to push municipalities to streamline housing approvals and reduce certain procedural roadblocks.(New Hampshire Bulletin) But advocates are blunt: the reforms lean more on process tweaks than serious funding or structural change, and they haven’t yet translated into a measurable easing of the housing shortage.
Meanwhile, school funding remains heavily dependent on local property taxes. That is a political choice, not an act of God. It keeps the burden high in property-poor towns and locks us into the “tax the house, not the income” model that punishes people whose biggest asset is their home, not their stock portfolio.
Both parties have learned to live comfortably inside this broken setup. Voters have not.
Who’s getting squeezed the hardest?
The “New Hampshire Squeeze” doesn’t hit everyone equally.
- Young workers and first-time homebuyers face a market where renting is punishing and buying is out of reach. They’re exactly the people the state claims it wants to attract and retain.
- Single parents, particularly mothers, face the no-win child care math: work and drown in costs, or stay home and fall behind permanently.(Child Care Aware)
- Retirees on fixed incomes are “house rich, cash poor” and watching property tax bills rise faster than Social Security.
- Local employers struggle to hire because workers can’t afford to live within commuting distance, especially in high-cost counties like Rockingham and Grafton.(New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute)
The endgame is ugly but predictable: the state ages, inequality widens, and the workforce shrinks. That’s not culture-war theory—it’s straight economics.
What a serious response would actually look like
This is where the conversation usually goes off the rails. One side yells “Build everywhere!”; the other yells “Don’t change our town!”; nothing changes.
A grown-up response in New Hampshire would include at least five concrete moves.
1. Loosen the local chokehold on housing
The state can’t run every planning board meeting, but it can change the default rules.
- Legalize more “missing middle” housing by right—duplexes, triplexes, small multifamily buildings—in areas already served by roads and utilities.
- Cap how many layers of local approval are required for modest, compliant projects so they can’t be stalled indefinitely.
- Tie some state grants to genuine, measurable progress on adding housing units, not just resolutions and study committees.
2. Create a real property-tax circuit breaker
If we insist on funding so much through property taxes, we need a safety valve.
A circuit breaker limits property tax liability for low- and moderate-income households so they aren’t taxed out of their homes just because assessments climbed faster than their paychecks. Many states already do this; New Hampshire could design its own version tied to income and home value.
This would directly help seniors, disabled homeowners, and working families in rapidly appreciating towns without blowing up municipal budgets.
3. Modernize school funding
We’ll never get off the property-tax hamster wheel without revisiting how we fund public education.
That doesn’t automatically mean “big new broad-based tax,” but it does mean:
- A frank assessment of how current formulas punish property-poor towns.
- Exploring more state-level revenue for core obligations—so towns don’t have to choose between education and pricing residents out.
The state already admits there are constitutional and equity problems in the system; the court cases keep coming. The question is whether policymakers will fix it before the next judgment forces their hand.
4. Treat child care like workforce infrastructure
You can’t say “We need workers” and then ignore the cost of caring for their kids.
Serious options include:
- Expanding and simplifying childcare scholarships and subsidies so more working- and middle-class families qualify.
- Incentivizing employers to help cover child care or partner with providers.
- Streamlining licensing and startup support so more providers can open doors without compromising safety.
This is not a “nice to have.” It’s the difference between people being able to take jobs or not.
5. Build around the workforce we claim to want
If New Hampshire really wants nurses, teachers, cops, tradespeople, and tech workers to live here, we should say so with policy, not just slogans.
That means:
- Targeted workforce housing investments near major job centers.
- Transit and infrastructure planning that assumes growth, not stagnation.
- Aggressive reuse and redevelopment of underused commercial properties into housing where practical.
The choice in front of New Hampshire
The affordability crisis in New Hampshire is real, and it is not a moral failing of people who can’t keep up. The data is crystal clear: the cost of essentials has outrun incomes, and the structure of our tax and housing systems amplifies the pain.(The Washington Post)
We can keep coasting on the “low-tax” story while families quietly bail out to Maine, Massachusetts, or the Carolinas—or we can admit the model is cracking and do the hard, unsexy work of rebuilding it.
The New Hampshire Squeeze isn’t inevitable. It’s the result of choices. Different choices are still on the table—if voters demand them and leaders stop pretending this is all just about individual budgeting.
The Granite State can stay a place where regular people can build a life. Or it can become a postcard version of itself that only the already-comfortable can afford to inhabit.
We’re deciding that right now, whether we admit it or not.
