Welch talks with millennials about childcare, loan debt
Originally posted in the Bennington Banner and reported by Luke Nathan
BENNINGTON — U.S. Rep. Peter Welch discussed a range of locally relevant issues with millennial constituents during a meet-and-greet lunch Wednesday at the Publyk House on Harwood Hill Road.
Welch, the state's sole representative in the U.S. House, commended attendees on choosing to live and work in southern Vermont, where he started a career decades ago. After earning a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Welch secured a job at a small firm in White River Junction in Windsor County. Welch's law-school peers looked askance at this choice to spurn opportunities on Wall Street and K Street, he said, but "it's amazing how busy you get when you're here."
The small-town gig allowed Welch to take on professional responsibilities he might not have assumed immediately at a job in a larger market, he said. "I found that exciting," he added, "and I suspect a lot of people here find that exciting as well."
Welch cited the redevelopment of Bennington's Putnam Block — the official groundbreaking of the project's $31 million first phase immediately preceded the lunch — as an example of the rural area's momentum.
Topics of discussion raised at the lunch, which was sponsored by the Bennington Area Chamber of Commerce and its Shires Young Professionals committee, included disability rights, cellular coverage, housing and childcare.
Two attendees spoke of headaches with the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. One of them, Jonathan Cooper, 38, a community and economic development specialist with the Bennington County Regional Commission, said he and his wife must file income taxes separately "to keep our [loan] payments manageable," which in turn means they can't claim the child and dependent care credit. The couple, who has two young children, pays about $23,000 per year in daycare costs, nearly a quarter of their combined income, Cooper said.
"Your generation is facing economic challenges that I didn't," said Welch, responding to Cooper's story. At his first job as a lawyer in White River Junction in the mid-'70s, Welch earned a salary of only about $9,000, he said, but his expenses were minimal. He had accrued only about $4,500 in student debt, and monthly rent at his attic apartment was $115.
He later purchased his first home for $46,000 with a no-money-down mortgage obtained through a banker on his softball team. "If I, at that time, had this mountain of debt from school, I wouldn't have been able to get that loan," he said.
Cooper's dilemma, Welch said, "is so widely shared that there has to be governmental action to try to address it." Welch spoke of a battle between ideological groups in Washington, D.C. over the appropriate role for the federal government to play in addressing the affordability of housing, education and childcare, but also suggested he may be able to join forces with Republican colleagues from states like Nebraska and Kansas to help expand internet access and cellular coverage in rural America.
The congressman concluded the event by encouraging attendees to maintain ties with other people "who share your conviction that living in Bennington is a good thing to do, that there's a future here."
The local young professionals' optimism and commitment to helping each other, Welch added, is "inspiring to me—especially coming from Washington."
