Report Reflects Good News, Continuing Challenges for Women, Girls in Eastern CT

Women and girls in Eastern Connecticut are progressing in many ways, but gender equity is elusive in many others, according to a new report.  The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut commissioned DataHaven to develop a report on the Status of Women and Girls in Eastern Connecticut, and the findings provide an insightful snapshot of disparities that persist, and challenges that remain and may increase, as well as diminish, in the years ahead. The purpose of the 26-page report, explains the Community Foundation’s President and Chief Executive Officer Maryam Elahi, is “to help inform and guide thoughtful conversations and inspire local ideas for social and policy advancements and investments.”   It is designed to be a “platform for action” to increase opportunity, access and equity for women and girls in Eastern Connecticut, officials indicated.  It is the first time that such a report was developed.

Among the key findings:

• Young women are achieving in school, but greater educational attainment has yet to translate to economic equality.
• Positive educational outcomes and economic equality are further out of reach for women of color.
• Many occupations remain segregated by gender, and women make up a majority of part-time workers.
• Women are at greater risk of financial insecurity, with single mothers at the greatest risk. 25% of all children in Eastern Connecticut live with a single mother, and 90% of single-parent households are headed by a mother.
• Women in Eastern Connecticut are healthy, with a life expectancy of about 82 years—slightly above the national average, but below the state average.

The report also found that:

• The opioid epidemic continues to ravage our communities, with deaths of women in 2016 more than double those of 2012.
• Young women are at heightened risk for many mental health conditions. 35% of female students reported feeling hopeless or depressed vs. 19% of male students, and women are three times more likely to attempt suicide than men.
• Violence against women continues to be a major public health problem. Almost 5,000 women in Windham and New London counties received services from domestic violence shelters.

The report defines Eastern Connecticut as the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut service area:  42 towns that include 453,000 people, 227,000 women.  The population of the region is 80% white, 9% Latina, 4% Black and 4% Asian.  Approximately 33,700 residents, or 7 percent, are foreign born.  Looking ahead, the report noted that the population of women ages 65 and up is projected to grow significantly over the next decade; estimated to increase 44 percent by 2025.

Continuing racial disparities are highlighted by the finding that among 90 percent of girls in the region’s class of 2016 graduated high school within four years, yet nearly 20 percent of women in New London and Windham/Willimantic lack a high school diploma.

The report noted that “a persistent gap” exists for women with degrees in STEM fields. Overall, 51 percent of men vs. 30 percent of women majored in science and engineering fields. Encouragingly, of 25-39 year-old women with degrees, 37 percent majored in the sciences. This is higher than previous generations.

Although women comprise 76 percent of educators, only 11 out of 41 superintendents in the region are women.  The report also found that 25 percent of businesses are women-owned.

“Women’s equality,” Elahi said, “is not just a women’s issue. It affects the wellbeing and prosperity of every family and community.”

The Community Foundation has organized public forums to discuss the report findings.  The first was held last week in Hampton, the next is February 15 in New London.

New Haven-based DataHaven’s mission is to improve quality of life by collecting, sharing, and interpreting public data for effective decision-making. The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut serves 42 towns and is comprised of over 490 charitable funds, putting “philanthropy into action to address the needs, rights and interests of the region.”

Need Accreditation? New England Commission Gives CT Regents Extensive To-Do List

If you were attempting to convince the accrediting board for higher education that no harm will come to the quality and caliber of students’ education when 12 community colleges are merged into one, would 51 suggestions for revisions of the initial preliminary draft be nothing more than a series of helpful hints or harbingers of real danger ahead? Time will tell.  As will the final draft of the submission, which must be provided less than a month from now on March 16.  That’s when the Connecticut Board of Regents must send the final version of its consolidation plan for the state’s 12 community colleges to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). The proposal is for a “system wide consolidation of administrative functions and the administrative reorganization of the 12 community colleges.”

A letter from NEASC’s Barbara Brittingham to Jane Gates, provost of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, which is led by the Board of Regents for Higher Education, runs seven pages and is filled with questions, suggestions, cautions and requests for significantly more detail on plans.

Among the issues flagged by the NEASC’s Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, were two described as “overarching”:

1) low graduation rates (9 of the 12 institutions had graduation rates for first-time/full-time students below 15% in the 2017 reviews; certainly this rate is highly imperfect, but the percent of community colleges that were below 15% is significantly higher than in other New England states with multiple community colleges); and

2) finances, with the Commission expressing concern for 10 of 12 community colleges in their most recent comprehensive evaluation or interim report. With a proposal to remove $28 million from the collective budgets, the Commission will need to know, among other things, that students will be at least as well served as now and that there are appropriate resources available to support the programs and services being offered. Please include more evidence about the claims made, especially about the need for fewer staff once the consolidation is accomplished.

NEASC also indicated that “We cannot tell in any useful detail what is being removed from each institution in the way of positions, services, contracts, or other expenses. We understand that some (much?) of the reduction in personnel expenses will come through attrition, but we cannot tell what the contingencies are for replacing key personnel who leave during the next several years.”

The accrediting commission is asking for:

• who will be doing what, the timeframe, and expected outcomes
• the cost and timeline to implement new features
• examples of work that has already been accomplished or is substantially underway
• a multi-year budget, incomes and expenses, that reflects each of the campuses, the expenses of the central community college office, and expenses associated with the regional offices.
• Information on the many people now located at the various campuses that would be reassigned to work in Hartford at the system office

The Board of Regents was also directly cautioned “not to unintentionally mischaracterize the words or positions of the Commission,” pointing out an instance in the draft in which a policy was incorrectly attributed to NEASC.

It also notes the proposal’s claim that one financial aid system will “support more students, increase enrollment, and therefore increase tuition and fee revenue.”  The NEASC Commission directs the Board of Regents to “please include evidence to support the claim.”  It also asks for cost and time estimates regarding the Board’s claim that “functions that are currently maintained by each campus could be automated” and evidence to support the claim that a “consolidated structure is well-suited to address the opportunity/achievement gap that exists” in Connecticut.

Among the questions raised about the academic integrity of the proposed consolidation, NEASC includes this:  “With the proposed centralization and the proposed elimination of department chairs and program coordinators, it is not clear how the programs will be coordinated and overseen at the institutional level.”

Questions were also raised about the “aggressive” timeline for curricular changes, whether two years for students to complete discontinued programs is realistic, and planned changes in the number of student services professional and support staff.

The CT Mirror first published the NEASC response to the Board of Regents for Higher Education draft plan.  The Board of Regents has denied The Mirror’s request for a copy of the plan submitted to NEASC, saying it was a draft submitted for feedback and not ready for public release, the news site reported.

According to CSCU booklets, over the course of the past five years, the institutions of the system have collectively experienced a “precipitous decline” in headcount enrollment, both full-time and part-time, of undergraduate and graduate students. From fall 2011 to fall 2016, enrollment declined 11.1%, from 95,962 students to 85,318 students. Among the CSCU System’s 17 institutions, 16 experienced enrollment declines ranging from 29.4% to 0.6%. Three of the institutions experienced declines greater than 20 percent.  Among the CSCU System’s 17 institutions, 16 experienced enrollment declines ranging from 29.4% to 0.6%. The state has also reduced funding to the colleges and universities, a key driver in the consolidation plans.

Million Dollar Homes? CT Ranks 6th in USA

There has been discussion during Connecticut’s ongoing state budget shortfall about the disproportionate impact of the state’s wealthiest residents, and how overall state revenues are affected when some of those residents decide to relocate to lower-tax states. Now, national data analyzing million dollar homes is underscoring Connecticut’s standing as being among the states where the ultra-wealthy have roots.

An analysis by Overflow Data and Visual Capitalist ranks Connecticut in the top ten among states with the highest percentage of homes worth more than one million dollars.  Connecticut ranks sixth, with 4.5 percent of homes surpassing that threshold.

Ahead of Connecticut are only Washington, D.C. (17.3%), California (13.6%), Hawaii (13.5%), New York (7%), and Massachusetts (5.2%).

Connecticut’s standing may slip in the coming years.  In a review of cities where million dollar listings have “skyrocketed,” increasing over the past three years, the leaders were Denver, Santa Rosa (CA), Boulder, Truckee (CA), Fredericksburg (TX), Heber (UT) and Boston.

The share of homes valued at more than $1 million has surged more than fourfold since 2002, according to recent data compiled  from real estate site Trulia, which analyzed the luxury real estate market in the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas, and reported by CBS News.  Across those regions, about 4.3 percent of homes are now worth at least $1 million, compared with about 1 percent in 2002, said Trulia senior economist Cheryl Young told the network.

The five metropolitan areas with the largest share of homes worth $1 million in 2017, according to CBS News, are: San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Fairfield County, CT, and Long Island, New York.

The network reported that rising real estate values, tight inventory and a lack of new construction are contributing to the surge in million-dollar homes. Another factor may be at play: rising income inequality, which has benefited the bank accounts of America's richest families, the network report noted.

As Demographics Change, Connecticut Extends Borders, Colleges Seek More Diverse Student Population

When it comes to college tuition, Connecticut’s borders are expanding and colleges across the state are focused on potential students that likely wouldn’t have on the radar screen only a few years ago.  The impetus is a declining population of college-age students, expected to intensify over the next decade particularly in the Northeast, and declining financial support from state governments.  The results are dramatic efforts to further diversify the student populations - in geography, income, ethnicity and other factors, including offering the lower in-state tuition to out-of-state students. In the case of Connecticut, the state Board of Regents, which oversees four universities and 12 state colleges, has proposed merging the colleges into one statewide college with 12 campuses in a controversial plan that has drawn doubts and substantive questions from students, faculty, and legislators in Connecticut, and the region’s accrediting board, the New England Board of Higher Education, which is considering the plan.  It would be the largest merger of colleges in New England’s history, and the resulting college would be among the largest in the nation.

The number of high school graduates in Connecticut is expected to drop 14 percent from 2012-13 to 2025-26, according to reports citing U.S. Department of Education statistics, driven by the nation’s second-largest proportional decline in public school students over the next 10 years. CT Mirror reported this week that “The major organization that accredits colleges has said many questions need to be answered before the new college system is awarded accreditation, which is essential to make students eligible for federal financial aid and to guarantee the college’s degrees have educational value.”

Fall student headcount at the 12 colleges has dropped from a peak of 58,253 in 2012 to 50,548 in 2016, the lowest level in a decade.  The four state universities (Central, Eastern, Southern and Western) have seen enrollment decline from 36,629 in 2010 to 33,187 in 2016, the lowest level in this century.

Even in advance of the merger plan, the Board of Regents has been extending lower tuition offers in every direction, reaching out to students in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and even New Jersey, making offers that the Regents hope will be tough to refuse.

Eight of Connecticut’s public colleges and universities extended in-state tuition to residents of neighboring states this academic year, primarily in response to declining enrollment and seeking to boost income.  The initiative expanded a pilot program by previously implemented at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, just south of the Massachusetts border.  Asnuntuck saw a 34 percent increase in students from the Bay State since the program began in June 2016.

Norwalk, Housatonic and the Danbury campus of Naugatuck Valley community colleges extended in-state tuition to New York residents, and t hree Rivers Community College in Norwich does the same for Rhode Island residents.  Northwestern Connecticut Community College in Winsted offers in-state tuition to Massachusetts residents, and Quinebaug Valley Community College in Killingly offers in-state tuition to Massachusetts and Rhode Island residents.

At Norwalk Community College, for example, the in-state tuition program reduces the cost for full-time tuition from $12,828 to $4,276 for the 2017-18 academic year, a savings of $8,552 for New York residents, the Norwalk Hour reported.

In addition, students from New York and New Jersey considering Western Connecticut State University will be able to pay in-state tuition — less than half the current rate for out-of-staters – beginning in the fall.  After receiving Board of Regents approval, the university announced a two-year pilot program to combat declining enrollment. Under the new pricing, students from the two states will pay $10,017 a year instead of the $22,878 out-of-state rate, the Danbury News-Times reported.  The program extends a smaller across-the-border recruitment effort that offered seven Hudson Valley counties in-state rates last fall, which led to an increase in students residing in those counties from 74 in the fall of 2016 to 243 in 2017.

The Boston Globe reported this month that the nation’s high school population “is becoming increasingly diverse and increasingly unable to afford high tuition prices. Additionally, experts predict a major drop in the number of high school graduates overall after the year 2025 — especially in New England — because people have had fewer babies since the 2008 economic recession. As a result, local colleges will have to work harder to bring students to campus and offer them significantly more financial assistance. And some of them, experts predict, will find this a daunting new calculus, leading to more college mergers and even closures.”

At Trinity College in Hartford, the Globe reported, “Angel Perez, the vice president for enrollment and student success, met with his staff to formulate a plan for how they will recruit amid the expected demographic shifts.  “This is the biggest challenge higher education has right now,” Perez told the Globe. When Perez sends out his recruiters each year, he urges all of them to seek out low-income, first-generation students, even though it can be more time-consuming and expensive, the Globe reported. The paper noted that they “meet students not only during the day at high schools but increasingly at after-school programs that help such students successfully make it to college.”

The Globe also noted that in a report released in December, Moody’s Investors Service “changed its outlook for the higher education industry from stable to negative because of the expected slowing of tuition revenue growth.”

Among the Wealthy, CT’s Gender Pay Gap is 4th Widest in the U.S.

In Connecticut, among the top 2 percent of wage earners, men earn an average of $658,000 while women earn an average of $214,000, a gap of $444,000.  That’s 67 percent less earned by women in the top 2 percent.  It is the fourth largest wage gap in the nation, comparing people earning in the top 2 percent in all 50 states. The data, compiled by the website howmuch.net, used information from the United States Joint Economic Committee.  The analysis indicates that the pay gap is “enormous everywhere you look. There isn’t a single place in the country where it doesn’t exist. The best state for pay equality is Alaska, but even there, women make 25% less than men.”

The largest pay gap between wealthy men and women is in Wyoming, at 71 percent, followed by Nebraska (68.7%), Oklahoma (68%), Connecticut (67.4%) and New York (67.3%).

The website indicates that for people earning an average income, the gender pay gap is typically around 20 percent. “For the ultra-rich, however, women make 60-71.76% less than men in a whopping 37 different states.”

In 1963, only 44 percent of prime working-age women (ages 25 to 54) were in the labor force. Around that time, women held fewer than one in three jobs. Today, about 75 percent of prime working-age women are in the labor force and women hold almost half (49 percent) of all jobs, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Connecticut’s average for men in the top 2 percent of wage earners - $658,000 – was the highest in the country, just ahead of Washington, DC ($637,000), New York ($613,000) and New Jersey ($555,000). Massachusetts was next, at $551,000.

For women in the top 2 percent, Washington, D.C. topped the list at $280,000, followed next by Connecticut at $214,000, and New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California at $200,000.

The website analysis concludes that the pay gap “gets worse the richer you are."

Five in Connecticut Reach Forbes List of America’s Best Employers for Diversity

Studies published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Business Review, and numerous others during the past decade have consistently concluded that diverse teams – and diverse companies - have stronger financial performance.   With that backdrop, Forbes worked with research firm Statista to compile a list of the best employers for diversity in America. Two Connecticut-based companies, ESPN and Stanley Black and Decker made the top 100 list; ESPN at number 36, Stanley Black & Decker at number 67.  They were the only Connecticut companies to do so. The LEGO Group, with U.S. headquarters in Enfield, was ranked number 169.  Starwood Hotels and Resorts, headquartered in Stamford, was number 197 in the rankings.  Yale New Haven Health was just outside the top 200, at number 208.  Yale University also made the Forbes ranking, at number 242.

Statista surveyed 30,000 U.S. employees in August 2017 to inform the list, asking questions about diversity, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and disability, according to Forbes. Responses among underrepresented ethnic minorities, women and people aged 50 and older received greater weight in the ranking.

Bristol-based ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports, launched in 1979 as 30,000 viewers tuned in to watch the premier episode of SportsCenter. ESPN aired its 50,000th episode of SportsCenter in 2012 and the channel is has been the main attraction for sports coverage despite challenges through the years.  A 2013 study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports concluded that when it comes to diversity, the Worldwide Leader is leading the way.

Reporting on the study, the publication Think Progress indicated that “ESPN has a strong diversity hiring policy outlined on its web site and it has won numerous awards for hiring a diverse cast writers, editors, and columnists. It regularly features minority and female hosts, analysts, announcers, and journalists on both its scheduled programming and its live broadcasts. ESPN is proof that there are qualified minority and female reporters and editors out there, and it is also proof that the rest of the sports world needs to do a better job finding them.”

Other factors Statista incorporated, according to Forbes, were the gender split of companies’ management teams and boards, and whether a company proactively communicates about diversity. It also looked at the gap in diversity perceptions at a given organization. For example, if women, older employees and underrepresented minorities rated an employer poorly on diversity, but everyone else rated it highly, Statista considered that a negative indicator and adjusted the score downward. Only companies with 1,000 or more workers were eligible to qualify for the list.

Last summer, Stanley Black & Decker held its first-ever Global Diversity & Inclusion conference, joining together established affinity networks from around the company.  Affinity networks – voluntary, employee-driven groups – have been established throughout the company’s business and regions to “provide an environment where employees can engage around a particular shared interest or experience,” the company’s website explains.

“The objective of the groups is to engage, enable, and empower by providing networking opportunities, improve representation across the business and promote career advancement.  We embrace and respect differences – and diversity and inclusion are embedded into our company values and purpose,” the website points out.

The top 10 included:

1. Northern Trust, Chicago
2. The Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
3. Levy, Chicago
4. Intuit, Mountain View, California
5. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
6. Principal Financial Group, Des Moines, Iowa
7. Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
8. Wegmans Food Markets, Austin, Texas
9. Keller Williams Realty, Austin, Texas
10. AbbVie, North Chicago

In addition to the Connecticut-based organizations named in the top 250, New York City-based NBC Universal Media, with a strong presence in Stamford, placed at number 42.  TIAA-CREF, which coordinates the state’s college savings program for the State Treasurer’s Office, was ranked at number 59.  GE, which departed Fairfield for Boston, also made the top 100 at number 85.

Harp Stands Out as Number of Big-City Black Mayors Diminishes Nationally

Last April, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp was sworn in as the first woman selected as president of the African American Mayors Association (AAMA).  In November, she was elected to a third two-year term leading the Elm City, earning more than 70 percent of the vote. In doing so, she ran counter to an apparent national trend – fewer African American Mayors in the nation’s largest cities.  According to an analysis by Governing magazine, in 2000, 19 of the largest cities in the country by population either had, or would soon have, black mayors.  By 2017, that number had fallen to six. Today, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, that number is four.

African Americans, and African American women, continue to be elected to City Hall.  Charlotte and New Orleans both elected their first black women mayors in November.  St. Paul and a number of smaller cities elected their first black mayors ever, the publication reported.

Among Connecticut’s largest cities, the mayors of Bridgeport, Hartford, Stamford, Waterbury, and Danbury are white males.  Hartford, which elected Thirman Milner and Carrie Saxon-Perry decades ago, hasn’t elected an African American since, but has seen two Latino men hold the office.

Carrie Saxon Perry was the first black woman to be elected mayor of a major New England city – in 1987. Milner was the first black mayor in all of New England, elected in Hartford in 1981. There hasn’t been a black mayor leading the Capitol City since Saxon-Perry’s term ended in 1993.

Were the current office-holder, Luke Bronin, to resign the office (a scenario that could result if he decides to run for Governor and if he is elected later this year) the newly elected City Council President, Glendowlyn Thames, could change that, if she succeeds to the office.

New Haven’s first black Mayor was John Daniels, who served from 1990 to 1993.  Like Harp, he previously served in the State Senate.

Across the country, Jacksonville, Memphis, Philadelphia and San Antonia had black mayors until recently, Governing reported.  Detroit elected its first white mayor in 40 years in 2013. The nation’s largest cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – have each has one black mayor, years ago. Atlanta elected a black female as mayor in a run-off election, winning with just over 50 percent of the vote.

Harp is the only member of the AAMA from Connecticut.  The organization was formed in 2014.  Fifty years ago, the election of Carl Stokes in Cleveland in 1967 put him on the cover of TIME magazine as the first black elected mayor of a major U.S. city. Richard Hatcher, also African American, was elected mayor of Gary, Indiana that same year.

Planning Underway for Nation’s Next Decade of Public Health Goals, to be Unveiled in 2020

In fiscal year 2017, the State of Connecticut received $373,921 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for childhood lead poisoning prevention programmatic activities. The funding arrived, at least in part, because one of the goals of the federal government’s Healthy People 2020 initiative, launched in 2010, is the elimination of childhood lead poisoning as a public health problem.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other agencies have developed a federal interagency strategy to achieve this goal by 2020.   The key elements of this interagency strategy include:

• Identification and control of lead paint hazards;
• Identification and care for children with elevated blood lead levels;
• Surveillance of elevated blood lead levels in children to monitor progress; and
• Research to further improve childhood lead poisoning prevention methods.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unveiled Healthy People 2020 in December 2010, laying out the nation’s new 10-year goals and objectives for health promotion and disease prevention. Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans, according to the program’s website.

Childhood lead poisoning prevention was one item on a lengthy list of national priorities.   Chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are responsible for seven out of every 10 deaths among Americans each year and account for 75 percent of the nation’s health spending, officials said as the agenda was announced.  Topics added in 2010 included Dementia’s, including Alzheimer’s Disease; Early and Middle Childhood; Sleep Health; Social determinants of Health; and Adolescent Health.

For three decades, since 1979, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to encourage collaborations across communities and sectors, empower individuals toward making informed health decisions and measure the impact of prevention activities.  The initiative is housed in the federal office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Approximately three-quarters of the goals of the previous decade-long Healthy People agenda had been achieved, officials said in 2010.

Even as federal and state authorities work to achieve the 2020 goals, work has begun on the next set of national objectives.

The planning process for Healthy People 2030, the fifth edition of Healthy People, is already underway.  Federal agencies sought comments from the public last fall on a proposed framework, which “aims at new challenges and builds on lessons learned from its first four decades.”  In December, officials indicated that “The foundational principles and overarching goals of the proposed framework for 2030 include a call to attain health literacy, achieve health equity and eliminate health disparities, improve the health and well-being of all populations.”

Once the framework is finalized, the agency “will begin the development and selection process for Healthy People 2030 objectives. We anticipate that the public will be invited to comment on proposed objectives as part of this process.”  It is expected that four regional “listening” sessions will be held.  Connecticut is included in the New England region, one of 10 regions across the country.  A session held in Atlanta in November was attended by 77 people.

The imperative to improve public health has not lessened over time.

“The United States lags behind other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries on key measures of health and well-being, including life expectancy, infant mortality, and obesity, despite having the highest percentage of GDP spent on health,” the website points out.

Hartford Rail Line May Bring Jobs, Opportunity for Key Populations, Study of Public Transit Suggests

As Connecticut moves closer to a significant increase in rail service connecting communities from New Haven to Springfield, MA, with the introduction of the Hartford line, anticipated in May, a report by Demos underscores the potential impact on economic opportunity and segments of the state’s population. The report, “To Move is to Thrive:  Public Transit and Economic Opportunity for People of Color,” which looked at public transportation in metropolitan areas across the country, presents a series of findings on the use of public transit by people of color and on the potential jobs benefits that people of color can gain from investments in public transit.

Its key findings on the use of public transit are:

• Racial, ethnic, and class inequities in the access to and funding of public transit continue today.
• Latino and Asian-American workers are twice as likely as white workers not to have a vehicle at home. African American workers are three times as likely. These disparities are heightened in certain metropolitan areas; Latino and black workers lack a private vehicle at as much as six times the rate of white workers in some areas.
• Asian-American and African-American workers commute by public transit at nearly four times the rate of white workers. Latino workers commute by public transit at nearly three times the white rate.
• Workers of color are overrepresented among public transit commuters with “long commutes”—one-way commutes of 60 minutes or longer.

The key findings on the jobs benefits from investment in public transit are:

• America’s employment rates are still low relative to 2000, and there is a strong racial hierarchy in employment rates.
• The majority of the jobs created from infrastructure investments can be non-construction jobs.
• All racial and ethnic groups gain jobs from large infrastructure investments and, generally, the larger the investment, the more jobs for each group.
• Investments in public transit show good returns in terms of the shares of the total jobs going to workers of color.

The report also noted that “growing numbers of Americans rely on public transit in their daily lives. In 2015, passengers took 10.5 billion trips on transit systems, up 33 percent from 20 years ago. Public transit ridership has grown faster than the population. But our public transit infrastructure, like much of our infrastructure generally, is old and decrepit. And many of our transit systems were not designed to handle such heavy use.”

While Connecticut’s cities are not as large as many of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, they do have populations with larger numbers of people of color than mnay surrounding suburbs.  Providing greater ease of mobility to station stops along the Hartford line could offer impacts suggested by the study.

The Hartford line, which is focused on increasing the frequency of station stops from Springfield to New Haven, will also see additional stations constructed in the coming years.  When the CTrail Hartford Line service launches in May, it will consist of both expanded Amtrak service and new regional trains operated by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and will offer more frequent, convenient and faster passenger rail service between New Haven, Hartford and Springfield.

Plans call for an increase in the number of round trip trains from six daily Amtrak intercity and regional trains to a total of 17 round trip trains a day to Hartford, and 12 trains per day to Springfield. In addition, trains will operate at speeds up to 110 mph, reducing travel time between Springfield and New Haven. Stops are to include rail stations in Windsor Locks, Windsor, Hartford, Berlin, Meriden, Wallingford and New Haven.   New stations are to be added, refurbished or relocated in North Haven, Newington, West Hartford, Windsor, Windsor Locks and Enfield by 2020.

Projections include more than 4,500 construction related jobs and over 8,000 total jobs, including both direct and indirect jobs.  Transit-oriented development, including housing is also anticipated along the route. Recently, plans to convert a long-vacant factory into housing was announced in Windsor Locks.

The national data indicates that workers of color are roughly 2 to 3 times as likely as white workers not to have a private vehicle at home: only 2.8 percent of white workers do not have a vehicle at home, but 6.9 percent of Asian-American workers, 7 percent of Latino workers, and 9.5 percent of African-American workers do not have a vehicle at home.

Nationally, 3.1 percent of white workers use public transit, while 7.8 percent of Latino workers, 11 percent of Asian-American workers, and 11.1 percent of African-American workers commute using public transit. In other words, Latino workers are almost 3 times as likely, and Asian-American and African-American workers are almost 4 times as likely as white workers to commute by public transit, the report indicated.

Based in New York, Boston and Washington D.C., Demos is a public policy organization “working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy.”

Hartford, New Haven See Diminishing Car Ownership Among Households; Hartford Ranks 8th in U.S. in Percentage Without Cars

Owning a car isn’t what it used to be – at least it isn’t as necessary as it used to be.  Demographics, fuel prices and where people live also play a role in whether a household goes car-free, according to a recent analysis by Governing magazine. Research also suggests younger families and one-person households are more likely to not own a car. The publication reports that several mid-sized cities recorded notable increases in shares of car-free households when averages from the 2015 and 2016 American Community Surveys are compared with those for 2009 and 2010. Those cities include New Haven.

According to the Census Bureau estimates, only 8.7 percent of U.S. households reported not having any vehicles available in 2016, about the same level as before the Great Recession.

In New Haven, the trend is stronger.  About 30 percent of New Haven households are without access to vehicles, an increase from about 27 percent in 2009-2010, Governing points out.  Part of the reason so many residents can go car-free stems from the city’s fairly residential downtown and pedestrian-friendly street grid layout, the publication explains, adding that New Haven’s high poverty rate is also a likely contributing factor, with many families unable to afford cars.

Other cities earning a spot on the list of for rapidly dropping car ownership are Paterson, N.J.; Davenport, Iowa; Elizabeth, N.J.; and Peoria, Ill.

Hartford has a presence in the top 10 cities that already have among the highest share of households without a car, at a 31.5 percent two-year average.  Hartford ranks 8th.  The list is led by New York City at 54.4 percent, with Newark, Jersey City, Washington, Boston, Cambridge and Paterson in between.  San Francisco and Philadelphia round out the top 10 after Hartford.  Hartford increased from 30.3% in 2015 to 32.6% in 2016.

Among other Connecticut cities, Stamford’s households without vehicles is at 10 percent; Waterbury at 20.5 percent; and Bridgeport at 21.1 percent.

Data was calculated using two-year averages from 2015 and 2016 Census survey estimates.