Disparities Continue As Uneven Economic Recovery Challenges Children and Families; Changes Urged

Connecticut lost 85,358 jobs during the recession, which technically ended nearly seven years ago. The state has continued to hemorrhage manufacturing jobs, however, and industries dependable before the crash—particularly those in finance and health care—grew more slowly or not at all. According to a new report by Connecticut Voices for Children, 97.7 percent of Connecticut’s net job losses were in mid- or high-wage industries and 51 percent of the job losses occurred in the manufacturing and construction sectors, with another 15 percent of job losses occurring in retail trade.

The financial disparity in the state’s population is more stark than ever, the report said.  “Over the past thirty years, incomes for the bottom 99 percent grew by just 14.5 percent, while the incomes of the top 1 percent swelled by 290.8 percent. As a result of this lopsided growth—a period in which the top 1 percent captured 71.6 percent of all income—incomes of the top 1 percent are now 42.6 times greater than the bottom 99 percent.”

The report stresses that many Connecticut working families have been left out of the economic recovery. “As the share of low-wage jobs rises, so does the challenge of raising a family,” the report states. “The jobs created in low-wage sectors not only pay less, but often provide less flexibility, less predictability and fewer benefits than jobs past.”

In the report. Connecticut Voices for Children points out that the combination of an increase in the share of low-wage jobs, slow wage growth and persistently high unemployment for minorities and workers without a college education threaten the long term well-being of the state. Data highlighted points out that “black and Hispanic workers in Connecticut make median hourly wages that are, respectively, $7.25 and $8 less than white workers’—a gap that has widened since before the Great Recession.”

Among the recommendations:  raise the minimum wage.  Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour would offer relief to 336,000 workers, the report points out, which would help those the state's recovery has left farthest behind. Breaking down the demographics, the research report indicated that 60 percent of benefitting workers would be women; 31.8 percent of all black workers and 37.5 percent of all Hispanic workers would benefit.

“Changes in the state economy pose challenges for low wage workers seeking to give their children the best possible start in life,” says Ellen Shemitz, Executive Director of Connecticut Voices for Children. “Higher unemployment and lower wages for workers of color exacerbate existing disparities in opportunity, with significant implications for both the competitiveness and fairness of our state’s economy.”

The report documents a long term shift in job and wage trends in Connecticut, with almost half of all jobs created since the start of the recovery in low-wage industries. Since 2001, the share of industries that typically pay low-wages has increased by 20 percent, while high-wage industry employment has decreased by 13 percent.

At the same time, unemployment has returned to pre-recession levels for white and college educated workers, but unemployment for workers of color and those without a college education have yet to recover.  Despite years of sustained job growth, these workers face unemployment rates that are three times higher than whites.

“Connecticut’s jobs swap has implications for individual family economic well-being and for the state’s overall revenue sufficiency,” explained Derek Thomas, Fiscal Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children and report co-author. “The first decade in the 21st-century – which includes the loss of manufacturing jobs in the early 2000s as well as the vast job losses during the Great Recession – has left the state with a sizeable high-wage jobs deficit.”

Among the reports’ key findings:

• Since 2010, unemployment has steadily declined for white and college educated workers, but not for workers of color and those without a college education. Unemployment for workers of color is nearly triple than for whites.
• Underemployment remains stubbornly high; the rate of part-time employees that would want to work full-time and workers that have given up on their job search in the past year is two times higher today that it was in 2007.
• Since 2001, the share of private-sector jobs in low-wage industries has increased by 20 percent, while the share of private-sector jobs in high-wage industries has decreased by 13 percent. Nearly half of new private sector jobs since 2010 are in low-wage industries.
• The median and bottom 10 percent of wage-earners have seen their wages decline by more than 2 percent since 2002, while the top 10 percent have experienced growth of more than 11 percent.
• Black workers’ median hourly wage is $8 lower than white workers and Hispanic workers’ median hourly wage is $7.25 lower than white workers.

Since the workplace is meeting fewer of the needs of children and families, Connecticut Voices for Children is urging state policy makers to take action to bridge the gap between wages and the growing cost of raising a family. The report recommends five key policy initiatives:

• Restore the earned income tax credit for low income workers to its original 2011 levels, allowing low wage workers to retain more of what they have earned
• Raise the minimum wage to $15, allowing low wage workers to cover their families’ basic needs
• Expand high-quality early childhood education to remove barriers to employment for parents and better prepare future generations of workers
• Strengthen infrastructure investments to ensure economic competitiveness and economy-boosting jobs
• Reform property taxes for a more equitable education system

Because workers of color are overrepresented in the low-wage industries that have driven the state’s job recovery, racial and ethnic wage gaps have widened. “The growth in low-wage industries is a double whammy for working families – not only do they pay less, but they also lack the benefits, predictability and flexibility of jobs past,” says Ray Noonan, Associate Fiscal Policy Fellow at Connecticut Voices for Children and report co-author.

Connecticut Voices for Children is a research-based policy think tank based in New Haven.  The organization’s mission is to promote the well-being of all of Connecticut's young people and their families by advocating for strategic public investments and wise public policies. To achieve these objectives, Connecticut Voices for Children produces “high quality research and analysis, promotes citizen education, advocates for policy change at the state and local level and works to develop the next generation of leaders.”

Youth Face Substantial Challenges in Fairfield County, Report Reveals

There are significant unmet needs among the children and youth of Fairfield County, with over 800 students dropping out of high school each year, 1 in 8 youth ages 16-24 unemployed and over 2,600 youth ages 16-19 neither employed nor in school, according to a new report by Connecticut Voices for Children.  Youth well-being differs from town to town and city to city according to the report, commissioned by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation. The outcome disparities “present a threat not only to the children, families and neighborhoods of Bridgeport, but also to Fairfield County,” the report concluded, noting that Bridgeport today educates as many students as Westport, Wilton, Weston, New Canaan, and Darien combined.  The report indicates that Fairfield County’s future lives in its cities and depends very much on the success of its vulnerable children and youth.

The purpose of the report is to inform and develop Fairfield County's Community Foundation’s Thrive by 25 Program, to help Fairfield County young people achieve self-sufficiency by age 25. The report points out that “Fairfield County’s 100,000 young people ages 16 to 24 face youth unemployment rates between 13.6 percent and 49.5 percent, one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets, and a shortage of living-wage entry jobs.  When large numbers of young adults remain dependent on family or relocate for jobs, their futures are shortchanged and their communities decline.”

Looking across the towns of Fairfield County, large disparities in relative opportunity emerged in the study. Six “very high opportunity towns” stood out clearly among their peers, the report highlighted: Darien, Westport, New Canaan, Wilton, Weston, and Easton are among the wealthiest towns in the United States. Unsurprisingly, few children in those towns face the sort of barriers to opportunity children typically face in Bridgeport, Stratford, Norwalk, Stamford, and Danbury, the report said.

Five relatively “low opportunity towns” also stood out: on nearly every indicator they fell in the bottom third of Fairfield County’s 23 towns. “Even more disturbing,” the report emphasized, these “low opportunity towns” were home to racially concentrated areas of poverty: “not only is youth opportunity lower, but that lower opportunity affects mainly children of color,” the Voices report indicated.

The 27 page report includes town-by-town breakdowns for each of Fairfield County’s 23 municipalities, including breakdowns of specific data for 20 distinct factors in the areas of Family, Community and School.  The assessment includes the percentage of the population that includes families in poverty, unemployment, housing unaffordability, preschool experience, median income and on-time graduation from high school.

The report indicated that Danbury has the highest proportion of students learning English in Fairfield County (21 percent), and a rate of student arrest twice that of Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford.  Over one-third of Danbury children live in households with income below 200 percent of the poverty level, which is $47,700 for a family of four.  Among the other data revealed in the report:

• Bridgeport is the city in Fairfield County with the greatest need, with over 1,100 disconnected youth 400 annual high school dropouts and a youth unemployment rate of 17 percent.
• Shelton (13%) and Wilton (17%) have exceptionally high rate of chronic absenteeism – on par with cities like Norwalk (12%) and Stamford (15%).
• Redding performs exceptionally low on housing affordability compared to other high opportunity towns, with almost half of housing unaffordable (45 percent).
• Stamford’s teenage pregnancy rate (3 percent of total births) is lower than in many suburban towns.

The comparison between Bridgeport’s youth and their counterparts in Westport is striking.  Bridgeport educates a student population of which nearly 40 percent never attended preschool and almost 80 percent of third graders failed to score proficient in reading, drawing from a property tax base less than one-sixth the size per pupil of Westport. In Westport, barely 5 percent of students miss preschool and only 17 percent of third graders fail to score proficient in reading. While over 400 students drop out of Bridgeport high schools each year and only 18 percent of Bridgeport students complete college within six years, Westport reports only 4 high school drop-outs per year and a 71 percent college completion rate.

Connecticut Voices for Children is a research-based think tank that focuses on issues that affect child well-being, from educational opportunity to healthy child development to family economic security. Its mission is to ensure that all of Connecticut’s children have the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

To assess specific obstacles to youth opportunity in Fairfield County and to prepare the way for new solutions, Connecticut Voices for Children constructed a Youth Opportunity Index containing over two-dozen indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau, State Department of Education, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others. Guided by existing research, the researchers, including Ellen Shemitz, J.D., Nicholas Defiesta, and Wade Gibson, J.D., compiled family, community, and school indicators for every town in Fairfield County.

The study also assessed three measures of the number of disconnected youth in each town: the annual number of high school dropouts, the number of youth, ages 16-19 neither employed nor in school, and youth unemployment (ages 16-24). For each indicator, they assessed towns’ standing relative to one another. They then looked across indicators and assessed how each town stacked up relative to others in Fairfield County. In addition, Fairfield County as a whole was compared with the broader State of Connecticut.