Pandemic roiled economy in 2020
Swaths of Conn. business landscape went into reverse as the COVID-19 spread
The World Health Organization put out its first alert a few days after New Year’s, on the mysterious ailment that was killing people in Wuhan, China. Between then and the arrival of the earliest vaccines to close out 2020, more than 1.7 million people globally died of complications from COVID-19, including 5,444 in Connecticut and the number climbing entering what the Center for Disease Control & Prevention said will be a grim winter.
Business closures and layoffs hit broad swaths of the economy, with more than 318,000 Connecticut workers receiving unemployment assistance in late April, dropping to less than 150,000 entering December. Federal aid extended to the Paycheck Protection Program, with banks awarding more than $6.6 billion in forgivable loans to Connecticut businesses that did not lay off workers. And through a series of executive orders, Gov. Ned Lamont imposed moratoriums to provide additional relief, to include a temporary stay on foreclosures and evictions.
Establishments and workplaces were required to adhere to protective measures outlined in “Reopening Connecticut” guidelines, with the state intervening to enforce rules in only a few isolated cases.
Additional economic shocks seem likely as those stays reach their sunset — and it is anyone’s guess on whether ripple economic effects of the pandemic represent permanent tides of change, such as remote working becoming the norm or city dwellers continuing to decamp to suburban towns like those in Connecticut.
January: Pre-COVID growth
Connecticut exited 2019 with the second lowest rate of growth in the Northeast, with gross domestic product up just 1.6 percent from 2018 and dropping under 1 percent in the final three months of last year. While the unemployment rate of 3.7 percent matched the U.S. average, it was the highest in New England. Growth in personal income also lagged the nation, at 3.2 percent ahead of only West Virginia and Illinois. Exiting 2019, Connecticut trailed
only Hawaii and Massachusetts for state debt as a percentage of personal income, ranking fifth if adding in pension and health care obligations coming due in future years.
February: Connecticut gamble
With the state’s share of slot revenue from the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos dropping eight of the last nine years — including 6.2 percent in 2019, to $255 million — Gov. Ned Lamont and the Connecticut General Assembly again weighed an expansion of the state’s gaming landscape, to include possible new casinos for East Windsor or Bridgeport, gambling apps and the addition of sports books. With Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun still reeling in December from the pandemic’s effect on tourism, the casinos tabled plans for a new casino in East Windsor to compete against the MGM
Springfield across the Massachusetts border.
March: Amazon expansion
In advance of the pandemic turning America into a delivery economy, Amazon was expanding its distribution nodes in Connecticut, with the company now employing more than 8,500 people here. As construction proceeded on new centers in Stratford, Trumbull, and Wallingford, Amazon lined up leases for Scholastic’s Danbury warehouse and in Orange, completing in August a larger fulfillment facility in Cromwell. Amazon tripled profits in the third quarter to $6.3 billion, even as it hired up 100,000 at pay starting at $15 an hour. Connecticut is not scheduled to set a $15 minimum wage until 2023.
April: Frontier bankrupt
It was a bankruptcy years in the making, dating back to former Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter’s $10.5 billion deal to take over Verizon Communications territories scattered throughout Florida, Texas and California. After replacing her successor Dan McCarthy at the end of 2019 with Bernie Han, Norwalk-based Frontier entered bankruptcy in April with debt of more than $17 billion. Now Han is stepping aside, with Frontier naming as CEO a former Vodafone executive who will be tasked with maintaining profits while accelerating a massive investment in fiber optic cable in pockets of the heritage Southern New England Telephone territory.
May: City exodus
Like most corners of the economy, real estate stayed in hiberna
tion in April as buyers holed up and people everywhere pondered the possibility of a depression. But in May, the exodus was on from New York City as elevator building residents bid on the best homes they could get in the suburbs. During the George Floyd protests, scenes of urban destruction cemented those decisions for some, Connecticut agents say. Statewide through November, more than 6,600 homes sold for a 16 percent increase from 2019, driven by Fairfield and Litchfield counties, where sales spiked 28 percent and 24 percent.
June: Restaurant rally
A month after tent cities went up outside restaurants across Connecticut, in June Gov. Ned Lamont allowed the resumption of indoor dining at half capacity. While some eateries did not sur
vive the pandemic, many were able to eke out a warm-weather existence as patrons became more comfortable with their household finances and a viral spread that seemed to be in check. With colder air come October accompanying upwardtrending infection rates, the Connecticut Restaurant Association warned more than 2,000 establishments could be gone by the spring, with the Lamont administration cobbling together a $35 million aid small business package in December.
July: BLT builds
Building and Land Technology continued to double down on Stamford and Norwalk, where it has led a construction boom the past decade alongside other developers like F.D. Rich and Trinity Financial. BLT went vertical on the third phase of The Curb at North Seven in Norwalk, the largest apartment complex being developed in Connecticut, with more than 700 units, while filing plans for more apartments, offices and retail along the length of Glover Avenue just north of the Merritt Parkway. In Stamford, BLT put out proposals for the Harbor Point peninsula once envisioned as a new headquarters for hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.
August: Isaias outages
For many in Connecticut, the lights were out by early evening on Tuesday, Aug. 4 — and for too many, they stayed off for too many days after Tropical Storm Isaias. Within weeks, legislators and regulators would grill executives of Eversource and Avangrid’s United Illuminating division on why they were unable to restore power sooner. A resulting “Take Back the Grid” law would force the utilities to pay customers up to $250 to replace spoiled food and
medicine if their storm responses are deemed inadequate, and regulators can now factor performance into the rates utilities are allowed to charge.
September: Paid leave
In September, two months in advance of when employers could begin registering, board members got their first look at the new website for the Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority at CTPaidleave.org, which begins extracting a half-percent tax from worker pay starting in January 2021. The new law allows workers to take up to three months leave making 95 percent of their regular earnings, for varying “life events” such as caring for sick family members and dealing with situations involving domestic violence. Workers will be eligible to take qualifying leaves from their jobs starting in January 2022.
October: OxyContin plea
A year after filing for bankruptcy protection amid mounting legal claims over the part it played marketing OxyContin during a continuing epidemic of opioid abuse, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in October to criminal charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, agreeing to pay $8 billion. Criticism was instantaneous of DOJ’s settlement with the Stamford-based company and the Sackler family that controls it. Two family board members appeared in December as part of a Congressional hearing, with Rep. Jim Cooper, DTenn., telling them “I’m not sure that I’m aware of any family in America that’s more evil than yours.”
November: Retail precipice
Amid the unanswerable questions of the pandemic’s long-term impact on retail, it was a local question that finally got an answer, when Safavieh Home Furnishings bought Stamford Town Center to keep it a shopping mall, rather than converting it to apartments or other uses. COVID-19 arrived as The SoNo Collection mall was still filling in its storefronts after its first holiday season in Norwalk, drawing some stores from Stamford Town Center as well as Westport. As Amazon shopping carts filled this holiday season, malls continue to absorb the loss of anchors like Lord & Taylor while searching out fresh uses.
December: Antitrust suits
The Federal Trade Commission and New York’s attorney general sued Facebook in December, with Connecticut joining most other states in accusing the company of using its market heft to eliminate competitive threats. The FTC wants Facebook to sell off Instagram and the WhatsApp messaging service, arguing Facebook’s only motivation in acquiring them was to remove formidable competitors. Facebook responded by calling the action “revisionist history” given prior antitrust clearance. In mid-December, Texas and several other states sued Google claiming it has an “anticompetitive agreement” with Facebook for online display advertising.