On the last Friday of each month, the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute’s research team shares a curated list of books, research papers, podcasts, and more that are helping to shape our understanding of the economic wellbeing of the Granite State and beyond.

Here are our picks for January 2026:

📄 Operating on Thin Margins: The Cost of Providing New Hampshire Child Care – UNH Carsey School of Public Policy  

“The disparity between prices that the market can bear and the costs of operating a program—particularly a high-quality program with appropriate staff compensation—helps explain why programs are financially unstable.” 

📄 The State of Homelessness in New Hampshire: 2025 Edition – New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness 

“Nearly one out of every four adults who experienced homelessness for the first time in their life in 2024 was a NH resident aged 55 or older.”  

📄 Challenges Confronting New Hampshire’s Health Care System – New Hampshire Hospital Association  

“Workforce shortages have led to high vacancy rates across all hospital departments, including nurses (16.8%), surgical technicians (17.1%) and respiratory therapists (18.4%).”  

📄 The New Hampshire Voluntary Paid Family and Medical Leave Program: Did the Program Increase Coverage? – UNH Carsey School of Public Policy  

Workers in small firms and lower earners were much less likely to have paid family and medical leave benefits, pointing to structural inequities that the program may not have addressed.  

📄 First-Year Rural Health Fund Awards Range from Less Than $100 Per Rural Resident in Ten States to More Than $500 in Eight – KFF  

The $204 million New Hampshire received for the first year of implementation through the Rural Health Transformation Fund translates to about $326 for each rural resident, more than double the national average of $157 per person.  

💡 Have you read something that should be on our radar? Share it with us at info@nhfpi.org—we’d love to hear from you!