Children do well when families do well, and families do well in part when the economy provides jobs with fair wages and good benefits. Yet since the Great Recession, the share of well-paying jobs in Connecticut has shrunk, and the state’s lagging economic recovery has left many—including youth, black workers, and the less educated—behind. In many cases, disparities between the most disadvantaged workers and the rest have increased.
In this report, we evaluate the state’s economy through three measures: labor force, jobs, and wages.
Key Findings:
Over the last five years, the share of low-wage jobs increased by 9.2 percent. In contrast, the share of mid-wage jobs decreased and the share of high-wage jobs increased slightly.
People of color have become increasingly overrepresented in low-wage work and underrepresented in high-wage work over the last five years.
Wage disparities by race have widened: the median white worker now makes $10.08 and $8.98 per hour more than their black and Latino counterparts, respectively.
The wealthiest 10 percent experienced the greatest raise in the last year while the median worker’s wage remained essentially flat.
