Over the past 25 years, the Children’s Budget shows that the resources Connecticut devotes to young people has fallen to roughly 30 percent of the state’s General Fund from 40 percent in the early 1990s. Were Connecticut still spending the same portion of the General Fund on the Children’s Budget as it did two decades ago, support for children and families would be nearly $2 billion higher than today. That would be enough to nearly double the state’s investment in K-12 education.
This brief examines both short- and long-term trends in the Children’s Budget. All budget figures are from the Office of Fiscal Analysis, and are not adjusted for inflation – meaning that, in most cases, the figures below actually understate some of the changes to the Children’s Budget.
See our interactive, ‘Tracking the Children's Budget’ to see for yourself how well our state has done by our young people over the past 25 years.
