Entrepreneurship is Focus of November Attention in CT and Beyond

November is a terrific month to glimpse the future.  Startup Weekend returns to New Haven the weekend of November 9-11.   And right behind it arrives Global Entrepreneurship Week, November 12-18. Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world a year ago. All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation.

The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback. Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups.  New Haven and Hartford have been host to Startup Weekends in Connecticut.

Right on the heels of that weekend will be Global Entrepreneurship Week, when millions of young people around the world - including some in Connecticut -  join a growing movement of entrepreneurial people, to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things.

Countries across six continents come together to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week during Nov. 12-18, an initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity. Students, educators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, employees, non-profit leaders, government officials and many others participate in a range of activities, from online to face-to-face, and from large-scale competitions and events to intimate networking gatherings.

Among the Connecticut locations already signed on to participate in at least one activity during the week are Norwalk High School, Quinnipiac University, RHAM High School in Hebron, and Pathways to Technology Magnet School in Windsor.

Storm Names Influence Baby Names, Research Reveals

Storm names matter – in some unexpected ways.  The more prominent a hurricane name in the news, the more likely that during the coming year there will be an increase in babies named not after the storm specifically (so don’t expect a platoon of Sandy’s), but with names that evoke the storms’ name. Writing in the October issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Jonah Berger, Eric Bradlow, Alex Braunstein and Yao Zhang of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that names starting with K, such as Karl and Katie, became about 9% more popular after Hurricane Katrina - evidence that parents' choices about what to call their children are influenced by the sound of names in the news. The Harvard Business Review, reporting on the research, points out that the more damaging, and thus the more prominent, a hurricane, the more popular are names containing sounds similar to the storm's oft-repeated name.

The researchers were investigating how psychological processes shape the evolution of culture.  They looked specifically at how a cultural item's popularity is shaped by the recent popularity of other items with features in common.  Using more than 100 years of first-names data, they examined how a name’s popularity is influenced by the popularity of that name’s component sound in other names in the previous year.  They demonstrated the causal impact of similarity on cultural success in an experiment using hurricane names, in their paper titled “From Karen to Katie: Using Baby Names to Understand Cultural Evolution.”  The results suggest how the similarity between cultural items affects their popularity and a way in which culture evolves more broadly.

So, perhaps we should get ready for a bump in babies named Susie, Sara, Sammy, Stacy, Stevie and Steffi in 2013.

Surveys Say: Hartford Great for Working Moms, Retirement Readiness, Sweatpants & Manufacturing Jobs

If you sometimes wonder how the Hartford region stacks up against metropolitan regions around the country, the answers have been pouring in lately.  A variety of surveys – ranking retirement readiness, comfy apparel, manufacturing jobs and best places for working moms – have landed metro Hartford among the leaders. Forbes Magazine looked at the top 50 metropolitan areas in America to come up with their list of the best places for working mothers.  Columbus, Ohio, placed first followed by New Orleans, with Hartford at number three.  Providence, R.I. - the only other New England city in the top 20 - was at number five.  Criteria included average salaries, average commute time, education spending, violent crime rate and the cost of  daycare.  The region included Hartford, Tolland and Middlesex counties.

What could be more comfortable than sweats?  Experian Simmons asked survey respondents if they bought any sweats in the last 12 months, as well as the number of individual items they purchased, and for the second year in a row, the nation’s top per capita consumer of sweats is Philadelphia, PA.  Number two?  That would be Hartford, followed by Pittsburgh.  Boston is number six, just one slot ahead of New York City.

On Forbes magazine’s list of “Best Cities for Manufacturing Jobs,” Hartford landed in the top ten, at number eight, between Kansas City and Sacremento.  Topping that list was Houston.

The number of Americans who report making financial preparations for retirement dropped to 70% in 2012, the lowest level in three years, according to Ameriprise Financial's 2012 City Pulse Index. While 63% of respondents report having set money aside for retirement, only 37% feel “on track” for retirement.  The study, which examined consumer retirement planning in the 30 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, found that the country's most prepared and retirement-confident residents reside in Hartford-New Haven.  Following were San Diego and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The least prepared people, according to the survey, live in Indianapolis, Charlotte and Washington, D.C.

Taken together, that would suggest that for a working mom seeking employment in a manufacturing job, who enjoys wearing sweats in her off hours while planning for retirement, Greater Hartford is the place to be.

State’s 14 Regional Planning Organizations to See Demographic Changes Ahead

Most people are familiar with the leading numbers that characterize Connecticut… 169 towns, 8 counties, 5 Congressional Districts, and so on.  Fewer people – especially in the Land of Steady Habits – are aware of the 14 Regional Planning Organizations that divvy up the state’s geography. The Office of Policy and Management (OPM) is responsible for the designation and re-designation of planning regions within the state. Through local ordinance, the municipalities within each of these planning regions have voluntarily created one of the three types of Regional Planning Organization allowed under Connecticut statute –

• a Regional Council of Elected Officials,
• a Regional Council of Governments,
• or a Regional Planning Agency.

The mission of the organizations is to carry out a variety of regional planning and other activities on their behalf.  Under state law, each RPO is entitled to a grant-in-aid to support its various planning activities.

The University of Connecticut’s State Data Center has developed population projections for each of the RPO’s through 2030, including a range of demographic breakdowns.  In the Capitol Region, for example, the breakdown by race, between 2000 and 2030, is projected as follows:  white, from 513,283 down to 380,545; Hispanic, from 71,149 more than doubling to 150,321; African-American, increasing from 86,739 to 130,835; and “other” increasing 25,231 to 66,135 – all of which reveals a very different racial and ethnic make-up of the region anticipated in the coming decades.

OPM provides a map showing these regions and a list of municipalities within each region, including town populations based on the 2010 census.

Regional Planning Organizations

1. Capitol Region Council of Governments Website: http://www.crcog.org Executive Director: Lyle Wray
2. Central Connecticut Regional Planning Agency Website: www.ccrpa.org Executive Director: Carl J. Stephani
3. Council of Governments of the Central Naugatuck Valley Website: www.cogcnv.org Executive Director: Peter Dorpalen
4. Greater Bridgeport Regional Council Website: www.gbrpa.org Acting Executive Director: Brian Bidolli
5.  Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials Website: http://www.hvceo.org Executive Director: Jonathan Chew
6. Litchfield Hills Council of Elected Officials Planning Director: Richard Lynn
7. Lower Connecticut River Valley Regional Planning Agency Website: http://www.midstaterpa.org Executive Director: Geoffrey L. Colegrove
8. Northeastern Connecticut Council of Governments Executive Director: John Filchak
9. Northwestern Connecticut Council of Governments Executive Director: Dan McGuinness
10. South Central Regional Council of Governments Website: www.scrcog.org Executive Director: Carl Amento
11. Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments Website: www.seccog.org Executive Director: James S. Butler
12.  South Western Regional Planning Agency Website: www.swrpa.org Executive Director: Dr. Floyd Lapp, FAICP
13. Valley Council of Governments Website: www.valleycog.org Executive Director: Richard T. Dunne
14. Windham Region Council of Governments Website: http://www.wincog.org Executive Director: Mark N. Paquette

AARP Forums, Survey Focus on Need for Social Security, Medicare Funding

The Connecticut chapter of AARP will hold public forums in the 4^th and 5^th Congressional Districts in the coming weeks, just prior to Election Day, highlighting the decisions that will need to be made next year by the newly elected administration and Congress regarding future of Medicare and Social Security.   The forums – which will detail the issues involved to assist people to decade amongst candidates  - will take place on October 29 in Waterbury and November 2 in Bridgeport. As a backdrop to the forums, AARP commissioned the development of a website focusing on the future of Medicare and Social Security, earlier this year.  More than 10,000 Connecticut visitors to the site have responded to AARP’s questionnaire to date.

Interestingly, 86 percent said they believe that Medicare and Social Security will need some combination of more funding or benefit changes. The majority of respondents (58 percent) think Social Security is okay as is or needs only minor changes, while 54 percent feel the same about Medicare. Only 18 percent of respondents believe Social Security is in immediate crisis and only 14 percent believe Medicare is in immediate crisis.

Connecticut Had Nation's 4th Lowest Birth Rate, New Federal Data Shows

The number of births in the U.S.  fell for the fourth year in a row in 2011, and Connecticut’s birth rate was among the lowest in the nation.  Nationally, experts said the declining birth rate was a reflection of the weak economy, which has dampened enthusiasm for having children.  The decline in 2011 was one percent – following a two to three percent drop in other recent years. Falling births is a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S. Births had been on the rise since the late 1990s and hit an all-time high of more than 4.3 million in 2007.  But fewer than 4 million births were counted last year - the lowest number since 1998.  And Connecticut's birth rate was tied for the fourth lowest in the U.S.

The breakdown by race/ethnicity in Connecticut:  37,280 births, including 21,541 white, 8,388 Hispanic, 4,777 black, and 2, 289 Asian or Pacific Islander, according to the National Vital Statistics Report developed for the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That’s a birth rate of 10.4 per 1,000 total population, the report indicated.  Only Maine (9.6), Vermont (9.7) and New Hampshire (9.7) had lower rates; Rhode Island also had a birth rate of 10.4.  The highest birth rates in the nation were in Utah (18.2), Alaska (15.8), the District of Columbia (15.1) and Texas (14.7).   The overall U.S. average was 12.7 births per 1,000 population.

The report, released on October 3,  is a first comprehensive look at 2011 birth certificate data compiled from state health departments.

Property Tax Overreliance in Connecticut Slows Economy

The per capita property tax burden in Connecticut is $2,473, an amount that is almost twice the national average of $1,388 and second highest in the nation, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) says in a new report highlighting the state’s overreliance on property taxes to fund municipal government.  Connecticut ranks eighth in property taxes as a percentage of median home value, but CCM says property taxes are not covering the costs of running the state’s cities and towns. Connecticut's 169 cities and towns, along with their boroughs, fire districts and other political subdivisions, levied about $8.7 billion in property taxes in 2009-10, the last fiscal year for which CCM has complete records, the CT Mirror reported, adding that the total, once updated, likely would clear $9 billion for the current year, according to CCM.

Property taxes provide about 72 percent of the revenue for municipalities, while state aid -- which stands at about $3 billion -- represents 24 percent, CCM indicated.  In another breakdown, the CCM report found that:

• 20 towns depend on property taxes for at least 90 percent ofall their revenue
• 48 municipalities rely on property taxes for at least 80 percent of their revenue

CCM's five-point plan calls for expanding the new revenue-sharing arrangements that began last year and allows cities and towns to get some revenues from state sales and real estate tax increases.

Eastern Connecticut's Increase in Hispanic Graduation Rate Is #1 Nationally

The Education Trust, a national education advocacy group, has ranked Eastern Connecticut State University as number one in a national study of the improvement of six-year graduation rates of Hispanic students among public universities and colleges.  The Education Trust study examined the graduation rates of 391 public and private colleges and universities in the United States, detailing the results for African American, Hispanic and white students, as well as the overall graduation rates of all students at those institutions. For the class of full-time, first-time students entering in fall 1998, the six-year graduation rate was barely 20 percent for Hispanic students at Eastern. However, for those Hispanic students entering in 2004, the proportion who had graduated by 2010 was 57.8 percent, the largest improvement among the 228 public institutions in The Education Trust study, "Advancing to completion: increasing degree attainment by improving graduation rates and closing gaps for Hispanic students."

José Cruz, vice president for higher education policy and practice at The Education Trust, said: "The lessons are clear.  What institutions of higher education do -- and don't do -- for students directly and powerfully impacts student success.  The schools we've identified provide vivid sign posts on the road to boosting graduation rates at colleges and universities across the country."

Eastern's 57.8 percent graduation rate for Hispanic students is actually above Eastern's overall graduation rate of 52.4 percent for the entire entering class of 2004. In addition, Eastern's improvement rate of 37.8 percent far exceeds the overall improvement rate among the study's 391 institutions of 3.5 percent, as well as the 3.9 percent improvement rate among the study's 228 public colleges and universities.

"While we know that there is much more work to be done on our campus in supporting Latino and other underrepresented students to achieve their educational goals and graduate from college, I am very pleased ," said Eastern President Elsa Núñez.  "This is a tribute to the work of our faculty and staff in providing support to students who face a myriad of issues in enrolling in and succeeding at college -- language barriers, cultural isolation, financial challenges and lack of family history as it relates to college attendance."

Núñez mentioned several grants from private and federal grant sources that have helped Eastern to identify and serve students who are academically at risk so that appropriate support systems can be activated early on. In particular, a Nellie Mae Education Foundation "Project Compass" grant and a U.S. Department of Education Title III grant have helped the University to create and improve its Student Success Model, which features additional advising staff; a revised, four-tiered advising system; faculty mentors; and a one-stop Academic Services Center that provides tutoring, math and writing instructional support for more than 10,000 student visitors a year.

"It is equally important for students of color to see familiar faces at the front of the classroom," said Núñez, indicating that Eastern has the largest percentage of minority faculty of any college or university in Connecticut.  Eastern also has two pre-enrollment programs each summer for students who may not meet the University's standard entrance requirements--the Summer Proof of Ability Program, which offers an opportunity to demonstrate academic potential, and the Summer Transition at Eastern Program/Contract Admissions Program, which provides intensive instruction in study skills and foundation academics to help low-income, first-generation and traditionally under-represented students transition from high school to college.

As The Education Trust report noted.  "... If America is to restore its status as first-in-the-world in degree attainment, colleges need to do more to ensure that all of their students -- especially Hispanic students -- graduate from college."

More Nonprofits = Less Unemployment, Study Finds; CT in 2nd Tier of States

Communities with better civic health have weathered the recent recession far better – and experienced considerably smaller increases in unemployment – than other communities that faced similar economic circumstances, according to a new report by the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC).  Counties across the nation that were rich in nonprofit organizations lost considerably fewer jobs than the low-nonprofit counties, the study revealed. A state-by-state analysis by the organization placed Connecticut in the second tier of states in both the density of nonprofit organizations, and social cohesion (interacting with friends and neighbors), the two measures used in the study.  Connecticut ranked between #11 and #20 in each category,  just outside the first tier, top-10 states.

For individuals who held jobs in 2008, the odds of becoming unemployed were cut in half if they lived in a community with many nonprofit organizations rather than one with a few nonprofits, even if the two communities were otherwise similar, the study found.  Among the New England states, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont placed in the top ten.

Overall, counties with more nonprofits per capita prior to the recession had lower unemployment in 2006. And while almost all of the counties lost jobs during the recession years, the counties with more nonprofits per capita lost fewer jobs between 2006 and 2009. Both patterns remain even when holding education, median income, housing prices, and other economic factors constant, according to the report.  Counties ranking in the top 10% in nonprofit density experienced an increase of only 2 percentage points in their unemployment rate between 2006 and 2009, compared with 5.1 percentage points for the counties in the bottom 10% in nonprofit density.

These results suggest – according to the report - that nonprofits may bring economic benefits by directly employing people and also by changing the economic climate of the whole community. Nonprofits support civic engagement and social cohesion; in turn, when citizens feel committed to their communities and connected to their fellow residents, they are more likely to make decisions that boost local employment.

The study used statistical models to investigate the relationship between civic health and unemployment in the 50 states, 942 metro areas, and more than 3,100 counties since 2006.  NCoC was chartered by Congress in 1953 to harness the patriotic energy and national civic involvement surrounding World War II. In 2009, Congress  expanded the organization's Civic Health Assessment to become the nation’s largest and most definitive measure of civic engagement.

85th Birthday Parties Abundant in Connecticut

Getting older every day – that has been Connecticut’s story.  Between the 2000 Census and 2010 Census, Connecticut’s over-65 population increased 7.1 percent and over age 85 population increased 32.1 percent.  That compares with a 4.9 percent increase in the state’s overall population.  And the over-85 population growth exceeded the national average increase. Those over 65 – numbering just over half a million - now make up  4.9 percent of the state’s population, a larger percentage than a decade ago, and those over 85 are 2.4 percent of the population – about 85,000 people -  also a jump from the previous Census data.  Only five states - Rhode Island, North Dakota, and Iowa, at 2.5 percent, and South Dakota and Pennsylvania, at 2.4 percent like Connecticut- have as large a percentage of their population over age 85.

The state Commission on Aging – listing Connecticut as the 7^th oldest state in the nation by median age - predicts that between 2006 and 2030, Connecticut's older adult population is expected to increase by 64 percent.  They also note that the state spends over $2 billion (13% of the state budget) annually on long-term care services and supports through Medicaid; 65% is spent on institutional care, 35% on community-based care.