Connecticut – An Interesting Case Study of Economic Inequality
“Few places in the
country illustrate the divide between the haves and the have-nots more than the
county of Fairfield, Connecticut. Drive around the city of Bridgeport and, amid
the tracts of middle-class homes, you’ll see burned-out houses, empty
factories, and abandoned buildings that line the main street. Nearby, in the
wealthier part of the county, there are towns of mansions with leafy grounds,
swimming pools, and big iron gates.
Bridgeport, an old
manufacturing town all but abandoned by industry, and Greenwich, a headquarters
to hedge funds and billionaires, may be in the same county, and a few exits
apart from each other on I-95, but their residents live in different worlds.
The average income of the top 1 percent of people in the
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk metropolitan area, which consists of all of
Fairfield County plus a few towns in neighboring New Haven County, is $6
million dollars—73 times the average of the bottom 99 percent—according to a
report released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in June. This makes the
area one of the most unequal in the country; nationally, the top 1 percent
makes 25 times more than the average of the bottom 99 percent.”
Related:
Financialization and the Student Loan Bubble
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/13/how-the-financing-of-colleges-may-lead-to-disaster/