Land of Steady Habits for Women in CT Workforce

In Connecticut in 2011, there were 97,700 women-owned businesses , an increase of 4.5 percent from 2007, generating $15.4 billion in revenues, according to data gathered from various sources by the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.      Women represented 25.9 percent of the self-employed persons in the state (2007 data).    Women make up 48 percent of Connecticut's workforce.  Median earnings for women are $46,004, compared to $60,168 for men.  Women make up 67.7 percent of private not-for-profit wage and salary workers. The class of 2013 Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program at UConn  is only 30 percent women.

CT Main Street Initiatives Promote Economic Development

Connecticut Main Street Center (CMSC) has announced recipients of its 2012 Awards of Excellence.  The winning entries represent initiatives and organizations from Hartford, Middletown, New London, Simsbury, Suffield, Waterbury and Willimantic. The Connecticut Main Street Awards annually celebrate and communicate the most successful and innovative efforts in Main Street revitalization in Connecticut. Submissions were judged on criteria which included innovation, replication, representation and partnerships utilized, and outcome. Since the Connecticut Main Street program began in 1995, Designated Main Street programs have generated over $994 million in public and private reinvestment in their downtowns.  Over the same time, 4,121 net new businesses have opened and 2,475 net new jobs have been created.  For every $1 spent on a local Main Street program, $73.13 has been reinvested in CT Main Street designated downtowns, making the Main Street initiative one of the most successful economic development programs in the country.

Main Street Partnership

• Award of Excellence to Main Street Waterbury & The Republican-American for Celebrating Downtown - a special supplement of the Sunday Republican

Community Investment

• Award of Excellence to Upper Albany Main Street, Hartford Public Library for the Hartford Public Library-Upper Albany Branch
• Site Design by Sevigny Architects

Community Consensus-Building

• Award of Excellence to: Main Street Waterbury, Waterbury Police Department for Downtown Business Watch

Master Planning Main Street

• Award of Excellence to: Town of Simsbury for Simsbury Town Center Code
• Submitted by Simsbury Main Street Partnership

Historic Preservation

• Award of Excellence to: New London Main Street, New London Landmarks, City Center District, City of New London, Greg Wies & Gardner Architects, and Wilbur Smith Associates for The New London Parade Plaza Redesign

Beautification

• Award of Excellence to: Rotary Club of New London for Trolley Visitor Information Station Site Improvements
• Site Design by Kent + Frost
• Project Management by Richard Gipstein
• Submitted by New London Main Street

Adaptive Reuse of a Building - Urban Downtown

• Award of Excellence to: Patrick Schooley, owner for 560 on Main, Downtown Willimantic
• Submitted by Thread City Development Corp.

Adaptive Reuse of a Building - Town Center

• Award of Excellence to: Sage Engineering, Town of Suffield for The Bissell Inn, Suffield
• Submitted by Town of Suffield

Community Spirit Award for Business Retention (Award Sponsored by Webster Bank)

• Award of Excellence to: The Middletown Community for O'Rourke's Fire - A Community with a Cause: The community commitment to rebuild O'Rourke's Diner
• Submitted by Middletown Downtown Business District

Main Street Business Owner of the Year

• Award of Excellence to: Andrew Gutt, Cafémantic in Downtown Willimantic
• Submitted by Thread City Development Corp.

Main Street Pioneer - Business Owner Lifetime Achievement Award

• Award of Excellence to: David Wollner, Willimantic Brewing Company
• Submitted by Thread City Development Corp.

Main Street Property Owner of the Year 

• Award of Excellence to: Michael DiPiro & Michael Sokolowski, 505 Main Street: Collapse & Rebuilding on Main Street Middletown
• Submitted by Middletown Downtown Business District

Image Enhancement

• Award of Excellence to: New London Main Street for "The Big Picture"

Public Transportation vs. Congested Highway Corridors

According to Smart Growth America, investment in public transportation creates 31 percent more jobs than investment in road and bridge infrastructure.  Transit use also reduces traffic congestion, which can also serve to benefit the economy.  In 2011, congestion cost Connecticut nearly $1 billion in lost time, wasted fuel and lost productivity, according to the 2011 Urban Mobility Report. Among the most congested highway corridors in the nation:  Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, as reported in the 2011 Congested Corridors Report, developed by the Texas Transportation Institute, part of Texas A&M University.  The inaugural 2011 report is the first nationwide effort to identify reliability problems at specific stretches of highway responsible for significant traffic congestion at different times and different days. Analyses are performed along 328 specific (directional) freeway corridors in the United States.

Entrepreneurship in Connecticut Among Nation’s Top 15

The rate of entrepreneurial activity in Connecticut in 2011 was .34% - ranking at number 15 (tied with Arkansas and Louisiana) among states.  Tops in the nation was Arizona at .52%, California at .44%, Colorado at .42%, Alaska at .41% and Nevada at .39%   The bottom dweller?  West Virginia at .15% Across the nation, the rate of new business creation dipped during 2011 and startup founders remained more likely to fly solo than employ others, according to "Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity," a leading indicator of new business creation in the United States published annually and released this month by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The Index shows that 0.32 percent of American adults created a business per month in 2011 – a 5.9 percent drop from 2010, but still among the highest levels of entrepreneurship over the past 16 years. The quarterly employer firm rate also remained essentially flat from 2010 to 2011 at 0.11 percent. Entrepreneurship growth was highest among 45- to 54-year-olds, rising from 0.35 percent in 2010 to 0.37 percent in 2011. The youngest group (aged 20 to 34) also showed a slight increase.

Quality of Life Diminishes for CT's Latino Community, Study Reveals

A newly completed comprehensive statewide survey of Connecticut’s Latino population reveals a community increasingly under siege from the economic downturn and diminished prospects for progress in critical areas including jobs, education and healthcare.  The study, for the state's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission (LPRAC)  points to “declines in socio-economic conditions in most areas,” including key aspects of daily life where the “declines are significant.”  Among the findings:

• Nearly two-thirds of all respondents indicated there was a time when they wanted to pursue additional education but could not because of cost.
• Concerns regarding discrimination remain strong, as respondents said they have felt discrimination in the workplace (38%), when pulled over by law enforcement (35.4%), when job seeking (31%) or when seeking housing (27.5%) or a loan (21.3%).

• When asked to rate the Connecticut court system on delivering justice in a fair manner, only 22.3% offered a positive rating, while nearly twice that number - 43.2% - provided a negative rating.
• As for their views regarding their local police department, 39.5% provided a positive rating as “treating people with respect” while one-third (32.8%) provided a poor rating.
• Regarding their overall quality of life, 28.3% said that when compared with two years ago, it was either “the same, but poor” or “worse.”  That is double the percentage offering those responses in 2007 (14%).
• Those who said they were “unemployed” or “looking for work” totaled 12% - more than double the percentage (4.8%) in 2007.
• The number of people holding 3 jobs quadrupled to 2.9%, from 0.7% in 2007 and 0.5% in 2002.
• Among those who own their own business or would like to do so, less than half (42.4%) indicated they would know where to go for advice or financial help to begin or expand a business.

CT Top State in Integrity, Income; Bonds Rated

At just about every turn this week, Connecticut was scored and rated: The state received an 87%, good for a B+ and second only to New Jersey among the 50 states, as rated by the State Integrity Investigation. The investigation, headed by groups Global Integrity, Center for Public Integrity, and Public Radio International, looked into 330 different “corruption risk indicators” which led to a final corruption risk grade for each state. The 14 categories focused on transparency, public access to information, ethics, judicial accountability, redistricting, and other areas. Grades reflect the structures in place to prevent corruption, and the degree of access that the public has to them. Only four states received a B or higher, while no states scored an A, and 8 states received F’s.

State personal income rose an average 5.1 percent nationwide in 2011 after rising 3.7 percent in 2010, according to estimates released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. State personal income growth ranged from 3.4 percent in Maine to 8.1 percent in North Dakota. Connecticut's per capita income grew 10^th fastest in the country, increasing by 4.9 percent in 2011, faster than the nation as a whole.  According to a preliminary estimate Connecticut remains at No. 1 in per capital income, far ahead of No. 2 Massachusetts. Connecticut's per capita income is more than $15,000 higher than the national average.

The bond rating agency Fitch, has rated Connecticut's  $555 million General Obligation bonds - schedule to be sold in mid-April - as "AA" with a stable outlook. The agency said the rating reflects the state's "vast wealth and income resources, tempered by a relatively high burden of debt and retirement liabilities. The slow and uneven pace of the economic recovery is affecting the pace of revenue growth and the state's ability to quickly recover from the downturn."

Elm City Market Praised in White House Blog

In a post on the White House blog authored by Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, New Haven's Elm City Market received high marks.  The local store is highlighted for demonstrating "just how much progress our country is making when it comes to healthy food access." The blog goes on to point out that "in New Haven, Connecticut, a city where one in four people live in poverty, a Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan from USDA helped construct the first full-service grocery store in the inner city in 2011. Elm City Market created 100 new jobs for local residents with salaries starting at twice the minimum wage.  But the community didn’t stop there: the store is sourcing over half of its products from producers within 200 miles of the city. "

And the concluding update... "The store reports brisk business, serving community members that previously lacked access to the products grown just miles away from them."

Proposal Extends Access to Care4Kids Benefit for Unemployed

Connecticut Voices for Children, a statewide public education and advocacy organization, has testified in support of a legislative proposal that would extend the eligibility period for individuals in the state’s Care4Kids program - for parents looking for work after a job loss - from two to six months. In supporting the measure, Voices pointed out that in 2010, 64 percent of Connecticut’s unemployed workers were out of work for 15 weeks or more, and half of all unemployed workers where looking for work for 27 weeks in  2009 and 19 weeks in 2008.  The average job search in Connecticut in 2010 lasted 36 weeks, up from 26 weeks in 2009 and 19 weeks in 2008.  The data for 2011 has not yet been compiled.

New London Main Street Brings Jobs, Economic Growth

The organization "New London Main Street" reports a 22 percent increase in net new jobs and a 25 percent increase in net new businesses between June 2007 and December 2011, despite the national recession.  Over that same period, there was a 44 percent increase in investment downtown - about $50 million - most of which came from the private sector (92 percent).  The positive numbers, appearing in a recent article published in The Day of New London and authored by John Simone of the Connecticut Main Street Center, underscore the effectiveness of policies that promote and encourage comprehensively managed downtown revitalization. New London Main Street is a nonprofit ( (501 ( c ) ( 3 ) ), volunteer-driven organization committed to revitalizing New London's historic downtown. The organization's goal  is to build community through activities and programs that enrich the cultural fabric, preserve and enhance historic streetscapes and support and expand the economic base of the city center.

Property Tax 41, Income Tax 33

Where does your tax dollar go if you live in Connecticut?  A full 41% to local property taxes, 33% to the state income tax, 15% to the state sales tax, 4% to Connecticut corporation income taxes and 7% to an array of other state taxes.  The data, from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, will be part of the conversation as the 2012 state legislative session convenes.