The purpose of Connecticut Voices for Children’s (CT Voices’) annual State of Working Connecticut report is to provide an overview of Connecticut’s economy, especially its labor market, to dive deeper into the status of certain workers, and to provide policy options to support Connecticut’s economy and workers. To that end, the report proceeds in three sections reviewed below.
The first section provides an overview of Connecticut’s economy and it proceeds in three parts: (1) an overview of employment growth, which is important because hourly wages and annual salaries from jobs are the primary source of income for most families; (2) an overview of personal income growth, which is important because it is the primary economic indicator impacting allowable growth in budget appropriations under Connecticut’s spending cap; and (3) an overview of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which is important because Connecticut has a high level of long-term obligations and when GDP grows, the tax base increases, making it easier for the state to generate the revenue it needs to service long-term obligations while also increasing spending on critical public investments and providing tax cuts for low- and middleincome families to make the tax system fairer. The key findings are summarized below.