This seventh annual report finds that Connecticut wage earners at every level – low, median and high – earned less in 2006 than they did in 2002. For workers with mid to low wages, 2006 earnings also were less than in 2001. The state’s low wage workers had the biggest inflation-adjusted wage decrease in the nation, and the wages of its very low wage workers fell more than all other states but Utah and Minnesota.
The gap in wages between college-educated workers and those without a high school diploma has grown significantly since 1979. Workers with bachelor degrees and higher have seen their hourly earnings rise to close to triple the wages of workers without high school diplomas, whose wages have fallen. Significant disparities in unemployment rates by race/ethnicity persist, and the state’s gender wage gap has been enlarging.
