Connecticut Post, December 31, 2007: ‘Two Connecticuts’ still a state reality
The decades-old notion of “Two Connecticuts” remains with us despite efforts through the years to reduce the gap between the state’s “haves” and “have-nots.”
Findings promulgated at a recent conference in Hartford on the persistence of poverty in Connecticut and a report issued by the advocacy group Connecticut Voices for Children underline the depth of the problem.
The state’s three-year-old Child Poverty and Prevention Council met with national experts early in December to seek solutions to reduce poverty in the state. The group reported that in 2006, one in 10 Connecticut children under 18 lived in a family with income below the federal poverty level of $20,516 for a family of four. Incredibly, that was the exact percentage as in 1990. Connecticut Voices’ study brought even a broader perspective to the problem. It found that the median net worth of state households headed by whites was $179,582 in 2004, while the net worth of families with minority heads of households was $6,700. Clearly, the “Two Connecticuts” remain with us more than ever.
What’s to be done?
The state council is charged with cutting child poverty in half by 2014 and the panel has finally winnowed its proposed initiatives to 13.
Most significant is a state earned income tax credit for low-wage parents that would be similar to the federal earned income tax credit. Yet for the past two years, the General Assembly has shunted aside the proposal.
Granted, state lawmakers have expanded funding for preschool and early childhood development programs, and that’s a part of the solution. Such programs improve the future academic achievement of children and make it easier for parents in poor families to work.
A state earned income tax credit, however, would help stabilize families so they have extra resources to meet basic needs.
Given national economic trends, it’s doubtful that Connecticut will be enjoying the large budget surpluses witnessed in recent years. However, surpluses remain in the state’s economic outlook.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the Assembly, which convenes in February, must keep the state’s poor and the earned income tax credit initiative in mind this session and finally enact it into law.