Pay Business Taxes in Bitcoin? In Ohio, Yes You Can

Just months ago, the news this month from Ohio’s State Treasurer might not have caused a ripple in Connecticut.  That was before Ideanomics, a global technology company focused on digital asset production and distribution, closed a deal to construct its first “Fintech Village” Center for Technology and Innovation in West Hartford.  Ideanomics is pioneering the new blockchain and AI-empowered economy. In Ohio, that technology has crossed another mainstream threshold.  Ohio has become the first state where businesses can pay their taxes in bitcoin. Bitcoin is the most well-known of cryptocurrencies, which all use distributed ledger technology. Distributed ledger technology -- such as blockchain -- allows users to record data and transactions instantaneously in a way that is mostly unhackable, Governing magazine reported.

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel (D) told Governing that he hopes accepting bitcoin for 23 business taxes will be particularly appealing to tech startups and international businesses. He eventually wants to expand payments to individual taxes and other types of cryptocurrencies.

"We want to project to the rest of America that Ohio is loud and proud about embracing blockchain technology," he says, noting that the launch of ohiocrypto.com coincides with a major blockchain conference in Cleveland. "We're trying to plant the flag and send the message to entrepreneurs and software developers across America that Ohio is open for business."

As for Ideanomics, through strategic partnerships with and ownership stakes in leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain companies, Ideanomics is plans to bring transparency, efficiency, cost savings and new ownership paradigms to various markets including finance, commodities/energy, vertical industry/supply chain and consumer.

“The government adoption is the latest signal that cryptocurrencies are gaining legitimacy after initially being associated mainly with drug and weapons dealers on the dark web,” Governing magazine reported:    “First, BitPay -- much like currency exchange desks -- locks in an exchange rate and converts the currency to U.S. dollars. That makes the transaction less risky for government.  Second, bitcoin offers taxpayers an option with a lower fee -- 1 percent -- than those associated with credit cards, where there's usually a 2 or 3 percent surcharge for payments to the government.”

Seminole County, Fla., began accepting payments in bitcoin for things like license fees and taxes in late August.  Neither jurisdiction expects to see rapid utilization of the new payment method, Governing pointed out, but both expect to be leading the way for other governments to follow.  Ohio’s current treasurer leaves office in January, to be succeeded by Robert Sprague.

The $5.2 million purchase of land in West Hartford by Ideanomics, formerly the University of Connecticut greater Hartford campus, formally closed with the State of Connecticut and UConn in October.  Plans are to bring 330 new jobs to the town, and to achieve LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council by investing in new and environmentally efficient technologies.

Travelers Ranked in Top 100 Best Places to Work

Founded in Hartford in 1853, Travelers is one of the nation’s top 100 places to work for 2019 according to a new ranking from the website Glassdoor.com.  The Travelers Companies Inc. ranked number 70, the only Connecticut-headquartered company to earn a slot on the list.

The Travelers Companies, Inc. is a leading provider of property and casualty insurance for auto, home and business, with approximately 30,000 employees and operations in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.  It is one of the oldest insurance companies in the U.S. and the only property casualty company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  The iconic red umbrella logo have been staples of the company for generations, and the Travelers Tower has long held a prominent place on Hartford’s skyline.

While steeped in history, the company’s status on the top 100 list for the coming year is a reflection of continual efforts to respond to both customer and employee preferences.  Travelers was ranked number 80 on last year’s top 100 list and also appeared in 2010 and 2011.

The latest annual list marks the 11th annual Employees’ Choice Awards, honoring the Best Places to Work in 2019. The rankings rely on feedback from employees who elected to anonymously submit a company review on Glassdoor.

The top 10 companies were Bain & Co., Zoom Video Communications, In-N-Out Burger, Procore Technologies, Boston Consulting Group, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, lululemon, and Southwest Airlines.

The top six industries represented on the list: Technology (29 companies), Health Care (13 companies), Retail (8 companies), Manufacturing (8 companies), Consulting (5 companies), and Finance (5 companies).  The most-represented metropolitan areas include SF Bay Area (23 companies), New York City, NY (9 companies), Boston, MA (7 companies), Los Angeles, CA (6 companies), Dallas-Fort Worth, TX (6 companies), and Seattle, WA (5 companies).

The Glassdoor 2019 Employees’ Choice Awards for the Best Places to Work feature distinct categories.  For each category, company reviews and ratings from current and former employees were considered between October 23, 2017 and October 21, 2018. They include overall company rating, career opportunities, compensation & benefits, culture & values, senior management, work/life balance, recommend to a friend and six-month business outlook. All eight attributes are a part of the awards algorithm.

Travelers work was evident during the wildfires in California last month as the company responded to policy owners impacted by the devastating fires. The response came from the glassed-in Travelers National Catastrophe Center, located in Windsor, a short drive from the corporate headquarters in downtown Hartford.

Modeled after military war rooms, the Associated Press reported last month, it includes a conference table behind 19 high-definition screens, which display maps, graphs, television images and social media sites, all providing real-time data on the fires. By overlaying the data on maps marking its customers’ locations, the company can quickly identify those who are likely to have been affected, Jim Wucherpfennig, Travelers vice president of claims, told the AP.

Glassdoor, which compiles the annual ranking, is one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites, with more than 62 million unique users each month.

History of Travelers 

Hartford Ranked 3rd in U.S. for Women in Business

If you’re a woman in business, Hartford is among the best places in the nation to be.  That’s according to a new analysis by the website ShareFile, which ranked Hartford as the third best place in the U.S. for businesswomen.  Hartford ranked seventh a year ago. The “Businesswomen Power City Index” was developed by evaluating the 50 largest cities in the U.S. to determine where the best locations are for women to achieve business success, according to ShareFile.  The index ranks cities based on the percentage of women-owned businesses, executive jobs held by women, women vs. men wage gaps and the buying power of women, which is based on the cost of living and the average wages earned by women.

Hartford has jumped four places from 2017, as a result of a higher percentage of women-owned businesses (up 1.4%), according to the analysis.  Hartford’s ranking in the individual categories was:

• 3^rd (down from 2^nd) in women’s buying power: 119
• 6th (same as last year) in the percentage of women business executives: 31.9%
• 16^th (up from 22^nd) in the wage gap between women and men: 18.1%
• 31^st (up from 42^nd) in the percentage of women-owned businesses: 20.4%

The website points out that Hartford is home to the Women’s Business Center, located at the University of Hartford, which supports female entrepreneurs across the city and the state, offering advice, training, and events for women looking to expand their business.

Hartford is the only New England city in the top 20.  Providence, in the top 10 a year ago, fell out of the top 20.

Just ahead of Hartford, and retaining the top two positions in the ranking, were Baltimore and Tampa.  Rounding out the top 15 were Washington DC, Jacksonville, Raleigh, Denver, Orlando, Miami, Austin, Virginia Beach, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Aside from the top two, no other city in the top 20 has remained in the same position as a year ago.

The analysis relies on data from four main sources, including the U.S. Census 2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, U.S Census Bureau 2015 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Sperling’s Best Places and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. ShareFile is a cloud-based file sharing service, a Citrix Systems company, based in Raleigh.

Millennials Make the Most Money in Massachusetts; Connecticut Ranks 16th

If you were born between 1982 and 2000, and you live in Massachusetts, you’re making more money, on average, then people of your generation living elsewhere in the United States.  If you live in Connecticut, there are 15 states where the average salary for millennials is higher. Based on U.S. Census data analyzed by the website howmuch.com, the average salary for millennials in Connecticut is $69,600, compared with $80,307 in Massachusetts.  The states in between, reaching the top 10, are Minnesota ($77,090), North Dakota ($76,836), Washington, DC ($75,220), Maryland ($74,737), New Hampshire ($73,941), Wyoming ($73,345), Alaska ($72,374), New Jersey ($72,150), and Virginia ($71,397).

Also ahead of Connecticut are Utah ($71,284), South Dakota ($70,989), Nebraska ($70,870), Washington ($70,441), and Iowa ($69,739).

The analysis points out that millennials “are the most diverse generation in American history, more of them went to college than previous generations, and they are now the largest contingent in the workforce. Many of them also graduated in the middle of the Great Recession, which economists believe might have a lifelong impact on their wages.”

Geography also plays a role, according to the data.  The South, for example, “clearly stands out as a lackluster region for millennials in the labor market.”  In the Upper Midwest, salaries tend to be higher, and the same is true for much of the Northeast.

With the exception of Washington State, much of the west coast does not stand out.  “This highlights the fact that big tech companies are creating great jobs for a select group of skilled workers,” the analysis points out.

Millennials are making the least amount of money in Florida ($54,889), Mississippi ($53,269) and New Mexico ($51,893).

The data used is 2016 median household income for 25 to 44 year olds, taken from Census data and adjusted by Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parity data, the most recent and comprehensive available.

Failures in Federal Housing Policy Focus of Media Investigation, Hartford Concerns Highlighted

An NBC News investigation of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has found that more than 1,000 out of HUD’s nearly 28,000 federally subsidized multifamily properties failed their most recent inspection — a failure rate that is more than 30 percent higher than in 2016, according to an analysis of HUD records. When NBC broke the story last week of the agency’s dismal record of responding to conditions that at times have been described a “life-threatening,” the example cited most prominently was in Hartford.

The news report stated that “A federal housing inspection in February confirmed living conditions were abysmal … throughout the 52-unit Section 8 development known as the Infill apartments. The property scored only 27 points out of 100, far below the 60 points needed to pass the mandatory health and safety inspection.”  Infill is located in Hartford’s North End. 

“More than nine months after the inspection, federally mandated deadlines for action have come and gone, and residents say little has changed,” NBC’s Stephanie Gosk reported, despite “citations for exposed wiring, missing smoke detectors and bug infestations,” noted that “the Infill units racked up 113 health and safety violations — including 24 that HUD deemed ‘life-threatening.’”

“In one of Hartford’s poorest neighborhoods, a three-month investigation by NBC News found that HUD failed to comply with federal laws requiring prompt action against the owner of a property that authorities knew was unsafe, unhealthy and in disrepair, according to documents released through the Freedom of Information Act,” Gosk reported.

While the agency pointed out that 96 percent nationwide passed inspections, NBC reported that “HUD’s enforcement office, tasked with going after the worst landlords, now has the lowest staff levels since 1999, according to a federal watchdog.”

“In the case of Infill, though, HUD acknowledged that the landlord failed to deliver,” NBC News reported. “The owner provided certain assurances to our field folks that, in the end, did not happen,” HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said in an email to NBC News. “That hasn't stopped the federal subsidies,” NBC News reported.

"It's a flow of money that continues to come," AJ Johnson, a local pastor who has helped the tenants organize, told NBC News.  “Whether it’s indifference or incompetence, the Trump administration’s failures in Connecticut and around the country cannot be excused. Someone must be held accountable,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who led previous efforts to strengthen the HUD inspection process, NBC News reported. “Secretary [Ben] Carson owes it to these families to present a concrete plan for how he will make this better, and how he’ll make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

Infill’s owner, meanwhile, is “set for years to come,” the NBC News report concluded.  “In July 2017, just seven months before the failed inspection, HUD renewed its contract with Isaacson for 20 years — a deal worth over $14 million.”

The NBC News investigation was reported, in addition to Gosk, by Suzy Khimm, Laura Strickler and Hanna Rappleye, and included interviews with numerous tenants of the property and other individuals in Hartford and Washington.

Blockchain Gains a Foothold on Connecticut Campuses

Blockchain is soon to arrive on Connecticut’s college campuses, with new initiatives imminent at Southern Connecticut State University, University of Saint Joseph, and the University of Connecticut’s Stamford campus. A six-week boot camp for individuals who would like to widen their computer programming skills to include Blockchain – a cutting-edge form of encryption technology – has been developed at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven.  The SCSU Blockchain Academy launches on January 23 and runs though March 6.

Blockchain refers to the technology behind the development of secure digital databases that are accessible to the public, but cannot be altered by anyone other than the person posting the data. It is a shared, distributed ledger that improves the process of tracking and recording a transaction.  Blockchain can be used for a variety of purposes, including financial transactions, supply chain management, luxury goods or anything of value. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies use this technology.

“Southern intends to become a leader in educating people about the ‘Internet of Value,’ which is the fastest growing market the world has ever seen,” said Colleen Bielitz, SCSU associate vice president for strategic initiatives and outreach. A promotional video posted by Southern (below) has already been seen more than one thousand times.

“Blockchain is going to be increasingly important to businesses, and during the next decade is expected to have a major impact on the economy and the world. The goal of this academy is to grow the community of decentralized application developers and to make New Haven a hub for Blockchain technology and innovation as companies look to take advantage of this growing market.”

The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) announced last week that it has developed the Greater Hartford area’s first two-part certification program for future blockchain technologist, in collaboration with DappDevs, which is also collaborating with Southern and UConn.

President Rhona Free, Ph.D., remarked, “With this certificate program, USJ continues its commitment to providing educational programs aligned to our regional economy. The Greater Hartford community will benefit from this newly-created training program that offers skill development and career advancement in blockchain application development.”

The USJ pre-certificate program geared toward faculty, current college students, and college graduates in the Greater Hartford region, begins on Feb. 2, 2019, and runs over four weeks as one three-hour evening session per week. The full certification program is a six-week session that runs from March 5-April 11, as two three-hour sessions per week.

UConn’s Connecticut Information Technology Institute (CITI) is sponsoring the creation of a blockchain chapter in Stamford in order to facilitate the development of an education-based micro community designed to connect decentralized application developers. This community, in hand with Stamford’s established financial enterprises, will play a key role in further establishing Connecticut as a USA crypto capital, according to the university’s website.  UConn is offering a two-day Blockchain Development course, with its partners, DappDevs and the Werth Institute.

UConn’s first-ever blockchain symposium was held in Stamford in August.  The conference drew top scholars and Ph.D. students Stanford, Princeton, Virginia Tech, and from 10 nations, including England, Israel, Switzerland, China and Norway. State-run news agencies from Vietnam and China also covered the two-day event, called “Blockchain Technology & Organizations Research Symposium.”

These initiatives reflect that blockchain is increasingly taking academia by storm, not only in Connecticut but across the nation.  This past summer Columbia University and Stanford University both launched blockchain research centers, following in the footsteps of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Digital Currency Initiative, which launched as part of the MIT Media Lab in 2015; MIT was among the first institutions to create such a program, according to industry publication Inside Higher Ed.

The Center for Blockchain Research at Stanford University launched in June.  Miami University launches a course in blockchain technology for undergraduates in the Spring 2019 semester.  Montclair State University’s center for continuing and professional education recently spearheaded the launch of three professional blockchain certificates -- one covering the basics, one for developers and one focusing on applications of blockchain in the financial sector.

https://youtu.be/_8X_wr1tCNI

Girls With Impact, Girl Scouts Collaborate to Increase Entrepreneurship Among Teen Girls

In an effort to get girls career-ready, Connecticut-based Girls With Impact, the nation’s only tech-enabled entrepreneurship program for teen girls, is launching a partnership with Girl Scouts of Connecticut to enable girls to parlay their cookies experience into their own businesses. “Entrepreneurship is one of the four programmatic pillars that comprise the Girl Scout Leadership Experience,” said Mary Barneby, CEO for Girl Scouts of Connecticut. “We welcome the opportunity to partner with Girls With Impact to provide our older Girl Scouts with a ‘virtual MBA’ in developing their own business plans. We are creating the next generation of female leaders and programs like this give our girls a real edge and help them become more confident and career-ready.”

Girls With Impact CEO Jennifer Openshaw says her goal is to train 10,000 young women as entrepreneurs, equipping them with the skills to start businesses or serve as innovators within corporate America.

Girl Scouts members will be entitled to participate in the Girls With Impact Academy – a 12-week “mini-MBA” program, valued at $2,000, that equips girls with business skills. The program, now in its third year, has helped some past participants to earn full scholarships at top colleges. Sessions are offered throughout the year, with various schedules. The reduced fee for Girl Scouts will be just $450, and scholarships are available.

It is both a skills-builder and confidence builder, critical for teenage girls as they navigate their teens and look forward to careers.  Openshaw points out that only 6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women and just 36 percent of entrepreneurs are women.  Those are statistics she hopes to change.  The after-school, extra-curricular program has seen exceptional results in confidence, empowerment, college prep and career readiness, including STEM areas.

“Girl Scouts is one of our nation’s most powerful leadership training grounds for young women,” said Openshaw. “We’re thrilled to support Girl Scouts as it seeks to modernize and remain relevant for young women in the new global economy.”

Girl Scouts of Connecticut serves over 26,000 girls and over 12,000 adults giving girls the skills they need to empower themselves for life. Through the Girl Scout Cookie Program, the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world, Girl Scouts learn five essential skills that they will carry with them for a lifetime: goal setting, decision making, business skills, money management, and people skills.

Through the Digital Cookie® platform, Girl Scouts are able to take their cookie businesses online, using their own personal website to reach customers across the country, experiencing true enterprise. Barneby called on girls to bring a friend to Girls With Impact and “build your network for tomorrow.” She says the tech delivery enables girls to connect with others nationwide and build that support system so critical to career success.

Girls With Impact, a nonprofit, is the nation’s only entrepreneurship program just for teen girls, delivered live from the home or road. Applications are accepted at  www.girlswithimpact.com.

Institutional Investors, Including Connecticut, Seek to Influence Firearms Industry

A coalition of global institutional and private investors, including the $35-billion Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (CRPTF), has announced plans to be guided by a newly developed set of principles developed to encourage a “responsible civilian firearms industry.”  The guidelines, established as part of their “fiduciary responsibility,” aim to encourage the firearms industry to address gun safety issues. Since the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy, Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier has engaged with companies in which the State invests that manufacture, distribute and sell guns and ammunition, raising the business case for reasonable regulation of firearms and ammunition sales in order to mitigate the potential long-term business risk posed by high rates of mortality that are attributed to the misuse of firearms, according to the Treasurer’s Office.

“The proliferation of gun violence is not only a public health issue but also a business risk issue, both of which are central to our fiduciary role as long-term institutional shareholders,” Treasurer Nappier said.

The launch of the Principles for a Responsible Civilian Firearms Industry by investors with combined assets under management of more than $4.8 trillion builds on the Treasury’s engagement effort.  Among the institutional investors signing on to the new principles are funds in states that have seen headline-raising mass shootings, including Florida and California, in addition to Connecticut.

The principles would apply to public and private companies that are involved in the manufacture, sale and distribution of civilian firearms, officials said.  They are focused on reducing risk, which is a priority for institutional investors who have a fiduciary obligation to invest pension assets prudently and to monitor and manage risks.

Over the past decade, shootings involving multiple victims have been on the rise with 2017 being the worst year on record. It is estimated that in 2017 alone, excluding suicides, more than 15,000 people were killed by guns in the United States including students, teachers, and law enforcement officers, according to Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization that tracks media and law enforcement reports of shootings.

This year there have been several shootings resulting in multiple fatalities at schools, bars, religious institutions and other places where large numbers of people congregate.

“We must do better,” Treasurer Nappier said.  “We must continue to speak out, contribute constructively to the public debate over this important issue, and achieve the outcome for which we all strive: the safety of our communities and of all our citizens.”

The five principles serve as a conversation starter for investors to use when engaging companies to be active participants in protecting and enhancing long-term portfolio values by ensuring risks are being appropriately monitored and addressed.  The five principles include:

• Principle 1: Manufacturers should support, advance and integrate the development of technology designed to make civilian firearms safer, more secure, and easier to trace.
• Principle 2: Manufacturers should adopt and follow responsible business practices that establish and enforce responsible dealer standards and promote training and education programs for owners designed around firearms safety.
• Principle 3: Civilian firearms distributors, dealers, and retailers should establish, promote, and follow best practices to ensure that no firearm is sold without a completed background check in order to prevent sales to persons prohibited from buying firearms or those too dangerous to possess firearms.
• Principle 4: Civilian firearms distributors, dealers, and retailers should educate and train their employees to better recognize and effectively monitor irregularities at the point of sale, to record all firearm sales, to audit firearms inventory on a regular basis, and to proactively assist law enforcement.
• Principle 5: Participants in the civilian firearms industry should work collaboratively, communicate, and engage with the signatories of these Principles to design, adopt, and disclose measures and metrics demonstrating both best practices and their commitment to promoting these Principles.

“More companies are recognizing that we do not need to work through these issues as adversaries, because we are not.  We share a common interest in their future growth and success, and in promoting the sustainable health of the economic, social and environmental framework within which they exist,” Nappier said.  “Our investments and the future well-being of millions of American pension fund beneficiaries are dependent on responsible corporate governance and citizenship of the portfolio companies in which we invest, but we also can influence it.”

Signatories, besides the CRPTF, include: the California Public Employees Retirement System; the California State Teachers’ Retirement System; the Florida State Board of Administration; the Maine Public Employees Retirement System; the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System; Nuveen, the asset manager of TIAA; OIP Investment Trust; the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund; Rockefeller Asset Management; the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System; State Street Global Advisors; and Wespath Investment Management.

The principles were conceived earlier this year when Harvard University Advanced Leadership Fellow Christianna Wood and Christopher J. Ailman, chief investment officer of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), convened a group of asset owners, asset managers, and financial institutions to design pragmatic principles for portfolio company engagement in the firearms industry that both gun manufacturers and retailers could embrace.

“The objective of the initiative was to mitigate reputational and financial risk in the investment portfolio. We believe these principles will help to ensure the long-term financial health of the civilian firearms industry and where possible, allow for continued investment/funding of companies within the industry,” the coalition said.

“These principles are an engagement solution to divestment and meant to stimulate productive dialog within the industry. Working together, we can build and leverage solid relationships as we make progress toward mitigating risks, not only to the civilian firearms industry, but also on behalf of our investments,” Ailman said.

Treasurer Nappier said that the Treasury will use the principles as a foundation for conversation and collaboration with the companies in the gun industry in which the CRPTF has investments.  Nappier will conclude 20 years as State Treasurer in January.  She did not seek re-election, and will be succeeded in office by Shawn Wooden, who was elected by Connecticut voters earlier this month.

Credit Card Balance? CT Residents Have Nation's Second Highest, on Average

With the holiday gift-giving season on the horizon, the sound of credit cards are being pulled from wallets and numbers being typed into online sites is also upon us. Before those bills even come due, Connecticut residents have a head start in building credit card balances. Connecticut residents have the highest average credit card balance, at $7,258, in the continental United States.  Alaska, at $8,515, is the only state where residents have a higher average balance in the U.S.

Rounding out the top ten are Virginia ($7,161), New Jersey ($7,151), Maryland ($7,043), Hawaii ($6,981), D.C. ($6,963), Texas ($6,902), Colorado ($6,718), and Georgia (6,675).  New York is next at $6,671.

The states with the lowest credit card balances overall are Iowa and Wisconsin, with an average of $5,155 and $5,363, respectively.

Connecticut average credit card balance - $7,258, - is not only second highest in the nation, but the average number of credit cards owned by Connecticut residents is 3.23, which ranks fifth among the states.  The states where people opened the most credit cards were New Jersey and New York, with an average number of 3.49 and 3.34 cards per person, respectively.

On the state’s average income of $70,121, which is second highest in the U.S., the average credit card balance is 10.35 percent of income.  Because of Connecticut’s high average income, the percent of income average is fourth lowest among the states.

The analysis, by the financial website Upgraded Points, used data of average credit card balances from Experian’s State of Credit: 2017, and data of average annual income by state in 2017 from research by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The analysis notes that “for the 58.8 percent of American households that pay off their balances in full, credit card debt is not a problem. But the other 41.2 percent carry some amount of debt every month and must pay interest fees.” In 2017, overall American credit card debt, according to Upgraded Points, broke through the $1 trillion mark and set an all-time high. The last time credit card debt was over $1 trillion was right before the Great Recession in 2008. In 2017, a survey by Pew Research found that only 46 percent of Americans made more than they spent.

The data indicates that states near the coasts tend to have the highest absolute credit card balances. “The only two states in the top 10 that aren’t by the ocean are Texas and Colorado.  States in the Midwest tend to have the lowest average credit card balances. Only three states in the bottom 10 were not in the Midwest: West Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi.”

Danbury Leads CT in 5-Year Job Growth; 41st in Ranking of 50 States’ Leaders

When job growth is measured over the past five years, Danbury leads the way in Connecticut. An analysis of changes in employment figures between 2013 and 2018 from the 381 metropolitan areas defined by the U.S. Census Bureau focused on the leading city in each state, and ranked them. The analysis, by the website howmuch.net, found that Danbury - which saw job growth of 6.6 percent - outpaced Connecticut’s largest cities, but that the leading city in 40 of the 50 states had a stronger track-record.

The leading cities in five-year job growth were Lake Charles, LA: 28.3%; Bend-Redmond, OR: 26.6%; Elkhart, IN: 24.0%: St. George, UT: 23.4%; Greeley, CO: 21.1%; Gainesville, GA: 20.9%; Fayetteville, AR: 20%; Boise City, ID: 18.6%; Austin, TX: 18.4%; and Reno, NV: 18.0%.  The analysis notes that the top cities “are truly remarkable job markets at the center of the recovery, perhaps because they were hardest hit by the recession.”

The standing of Austin, Charlottesville and Nashville are noted for “a reputation as fun destinations with music and tech scenes. They are mid-sized cities with universities, hospitals, and large well-known employers. These are the ingredients for long-term economic growth and positive employment numbers.”

“In many ways, Danbury is the forgotten city in Fairfield County up north here,” P.J. Prunty, executive director of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce, told the Danbury News-Times earlier this year. “These statistics show that people are attracted to a city that has opportunity and good employment. It’s growing, and that’s a good thing. People are voting with their feet by moving here.”  Back in April, the Danbury Labor Market Area had the lowest unemployment rate of the nine LMAs in the state. The Danbury LMA outpaced the state and national unemployment rates, the News-Times reported.

Leading the way in the five-year analysis, released this month, are Barnstable in Massachusetts, at 13.7 percent employment growth; in New Hampshire it is Portsmouth at 10.1 percent, in Rhode Island, Providence/Warwick at 7.7 percent; Maine the greatest job growth has been in Portland/South Portland at 7.1 percent.  Vermont is the only New England state with a leading city growing jobs at lower rate than Connecticut’s – Burlington/South Burlington at .8 percent.  Only Alaska and Wyoming are lower, rounding out the 50 states.

Also noted:  “Some places are factory towns with unsustainable growth rates. Others are truly remarkable places to live with thriving, growth-oriented economies, and still others are barely seeing any benefits from the economic recovery.”