What’s holding Conn. back?
Last weekend, I was obsessed reading a couple of in-depth front-page articles about our state’s economy and jobs outlook. No surprise, Connecticut remains in an economic holding pattern. According to Paul Schott’s series, it’s very complex explaining Connecticut’s economy and our state’s future because of what we experienced in recent years.
The Great Recession in 2008 clearly left a lasting mark on our region. The New York tristate area as well as New England were affected with lower property values and higher unemployment figures. Even worse, manufacturing industries were slammed with fewer hires and little growth years ago. As usual, Connecticut was stuck in the middle geographically and economically. Many of us tend to forget that New York and New England states’ economies have a tremendous impact on our state.
As a result, we never fully recovered from the Great Recession and remained hammered by the 1990s recession as Schott chronicles. “For sparsely populated states, it is more challenging to keep residents and recruit newcomers,” he reports. “The lack of people then becomes an impediment to creating jobs and overall economic growth.”
In other words, we need to consider that our state population is scattered and not growing at the rate of nearby states. In the last decade, Connecticut barely grew 1 percent of our population compared with 7-percent nationally. Though the pandemic led to many New Yorkers relocating to Connecticut, that growth is recent and hardly enough to make up for the last couple of decades.
In addition, during economic downturns Connecticut has maintained heterogeneous cities but reinforced homogenous suburbs and rural towns. These divided but lessened populations affect our economy, especially for recruiting and retaining residents.
Several sectors are trying to draw and keep employees, particularly in manufacturing. According to the Connecticut Business and Industry Association’s 2023 Connecticut Manufacturing Report, there are an estimated 9,000 manufacturing job openings statewide. There’s also an increase in retirements and a “skills mismatch” for these positions that’s leading to further employment vacancies.
Among the labor shortages and lagging economic periods, our state government has lured incentives to specific industries. In particular, former Gov. Dannel Malloy and his administration tried, “but it could take decades for those incentives to have a large impact on economic growth.” Plus, the state’s finances have been “shaky” and Connecticut has “a reputation for having a hostile business climate.”
Our state’s Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) has offered additional programs, tax rebates and loans especially during current Gov. Ned Lamont’s term. JobsCT, First Five Plus and Small Business Express were some of the incentives Schott investigated within DECD. “Given manufacturing’s importance to Connecticut’s economy, some industry advocates argue that the state still has not provided sufficient support,” he discovers.
So, what is our state’s future?
Economically, Connecticut’s approaches have yielded mixed results. We need to consider growing in specific policy areas to gain and keep residents as well as grow our economy. It’s no surprise that transportation, housing and education concerns remain pressing problems. As a state, we’re hardly holistic about strategizing best practices in these policy areas across divided municipal lines.
But specific Connecticut regions have grown. For example, I found it especially revealing that Stamford and Norwalk have flourished and they have devised unique economic development approaches. At the same time some of our larger cities, including Bridgeport and Hartford, could do more in these policy areas. All of these cities have diverse populations, but their local economies and development incentives vary widely.
Considering what our cities and the state need to do for the future, hopefully public officials as well as policy observers recognize that Connecticut has potential to grow as well as thrive.