“More workers must meet those requirements, just as jobs are becoming harder to find,” O’Brien said.
Long-term trends in economic and workforce growth is key to understanding Connecticut’s current vulnerabilities, CT Voices for Children researchers said.
From 1990 to 2025, the state experienced the slowest job growth rate in the nation. Over the same period, the number of people in Connecticut’s workforce grew at a similarly sluggish pace.
But if the state had kept pace with national labor force growth trends over that 35-year period, it would have close to 553,000 more workers, CT Voices for Children estimated. That many more workers could have significantly boosted state revenue and economic output.
In recent years, inflation has taken a toll on many working families whose incomes don’t stretch as far when prices rise, officials pointed out.
CT Voices for Children noted…
