Slim Pickings in the Land of Plenty

CT is a bit of a journalism desert at times, but Keith Phaneuf always has really fair analyses and this one on income inequality is a must read:

“Overall, the top 1 percent nationally emerged earning 25.3 times annually what the bottom 99 percent earned, on average.

But in 10 states, including Connecticut, the numbers were even more extreme.

Here the top 1 percent took home 100 percent of the income growth over that period. Specifically, the top 1 percent got 17.2 percent richer, on average, while the remaining 99 percent didn’t grow more slowly. They actually got poorer, losing 1.6 percent of their income.

In Connecticut, the top 1 percent out-earned the rest by 42.6 to 1 — one of just six states with a gap greater than 30-to-1. Only in neighboring New York was the ratio higher at 45.4 to 1. And Connecticut’s wealthiest out-earned their New York neighbors, on average, by almost $400,000.

...Connecticut has, on average, a child poverty rate of 15 percent — one in seven kids raised under these circumstances. This is better than the national average, which is closer to one in five.

But some sections of Connecticut are well below the national average. In Bridgeport, the ratio is one in three. In Hartford, it is about 1 in 2, or 53 percent.

...Child poverty levels have increased statewide by 50 percent since 2000, Horan said.”

-Keith Phaneuf, Already deep in debt, Connecticut struggles with extremes of wealth and income, CT Mirror

Also worth checking out the follow-up article