Jobs For Connecticut Now

From Today’s Hartford Courant: Fixing Connecticut’s economy seems to be a cynically amusing game of Let’s Blame Somebody Else.

… We’re creating no new jobs. That’s a 20-year trend, according to UConn economist Fred Carstensen. The anchor of Fairfield County — where half of our income tax revenue comes from — consists largely of high-wage earners from the financial services industry. As these highly specialized Wall Street jobs evaporate, these people, in the words of Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch economist Drew T. Matus, “have no skills.”

Unemployment levels are going to linger at 10 percent or above well into next year. So while it’s great that we were able to come up with $100 million to try to save 1,000 Pratt & Whitney manufacturing jobs for a little longer, has anyone thought about what $100 million could do to support cutting-edge biotech industries that might sustain us for decades?

… Matthew Nemerson, president of the Connecticut Technology Council, told me that we remain stuck in “a ‘gotcha’ mentality: Who raised taxes, who cut them?”

“We should be spending a lot of time not blaming each other but saying, ‘Oh my goodness, what is happening?’”

What’s happening is that new jobs are in education and health, and not manufacturing. Financial services jobs are not going to sustain us. We need to plan for — and support — a new economy. That’s no game.