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Two years after the COVID shutdown, Connecticut and the country have dug into 2022, a mixed year between the bookends of legalized sports betting at the end of 2021 and the sale of recreational cannabis at the beginning of 2023. The home state performed on par with the nation.All in all, the end of the year saw some shocks as it re-elected a governor who had promised to take a moderate path to growth. rice field.
Below are my selections of how they stack up, not so much in terms of shaping the business scene, but in terms of how they have affected, and will continue to impact, the welfare of Connecticut families.
1. Growth drives huge national surpluses and tax cuts
Hard for Connecticut’s coalition of naysayers to take, but state held its own with rising incomes and overall growth in 2022. Tough year for inflation. CT’s economy at 1% annual rate through September I grew up. That’s not a huge pace, but it’s good enough for him to rank 12th statewide, well above the national average. Undoubtedly, Home state has many major economic headaches. But Connecticut budget surplus of $4.3 billion in 2021-2022, fueled by a flood of federal pandemic relief funds and an additional $2.8 billion in surplus on top of relief funds that were planned to be used but weren’t needed. For the last 6 months. Taxes and the economy are clearly her No. 1 spot this year as lawmakers debate how much tax cuts should be made in 2023 after he returns $600 million to taxpayers in 2022. It has become a hot topic. The “permanent financial crisis” that has plagued Connecticut for more than a decade is finally over.
2. Inflation leads to strife and gas tax cuts
When there were first reports of rising inflation in the spring of 2021, optimists like me blamed supply chain explosions and thought we would be back to normal by the winter of 2022, but that’s not the case. was. Inflation remained at about 8% for the whole year, higher for food and energy, disrupting people’s lives and disrupting Connecticut. The combination of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and post-Corona consumption has sent petrol and kerosene prices skyrocketing. Lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont suspended his 25-cent-per-gallon gas tax in the state from April through December, but now plans to phase it back. A poll of voters conducted by Hearst CTInsider and WFSB in the fall found that most people expect CT’s economy to deteriorate in 2022 as purchasing power declines and rising interest rates keep the housing market flat. It’s not better.
3.Airlines take off at two airports
Connecticut’s ups and downs efforts to attract new airline destinations have yielded triumphs in 2022, not just for the state’s flagship Bradley International Airport. The upstart discount airline led the charges at Bradley Airport and Tweed his New Haven Airport. Breeze Airways, which will start his service locally in 2021, announced in February that he would make BDL its east coast hub. By the end of the year, the Utah-based airline said it will have 14 destinations and will add four more routes this winter. Spirit Airlines made its maiden flight from Bradley, Jamaica to Montego His Bay on December 15. This is a milestone for the state’s Caribbean-American community. And in June, Air Canada resumed Bradley flights to and from Toronto. Many of these moves have been accompanied by state subsidies. As always, the long game is keeping the route after the excitement subsides. Bradley is close, but has yet to return to pre-pandemic passenger numbers. In Tweed, his startup Avelo Airlines launched in November 2021 and will operate her 14 routes from New Haven by the end of 2022. This has led to 600,000 passenger arrivals and departures over the year as Tweed appears to expand with new terminals without state aid.
4. Restaurants and Subscribers Drive Hiring as Recession Continues
Connecticut employers added 36,000 new jobs in the year ending in November, a preliminary report shows. That’s a slower pace than in the U.S., which is below pre-pandemic employment levels but far better than in most years in the state, where the unemployment rate has fallen from 5.2% to 4.2%, and the U.S. overall declined more rapidly than Think of the restaurant revival because the biggest problem in many industries was finding workers. The Electric Boat continued to see steady adoption as the U.S. Navy expanded its submarine fleet. Having never gotten out of the pandemic shutdown, who knows how we will look at these job trends. But concerns about finding workers could end abruptly in 2023 if we see a recession, as many predict. The number of residents who said they were working full-time has fallen, reversing the strong return-to-work momentum at the beginning of 2022.
5. Electricity charge shock CT
The multifaceted inflation story came to a head on Nov. 17 when Eversource and United Illuminating announced to the state that the electricity tariffs passed on to most customers would double from Jan. 1 through at least July 1. It gave me an unpleasant shock. : Residents using the utility as their electricity supplier will see a price increase of approximately 40% at Eversource and 35% at UI, a unit of Avangrid. That means most households will have to pay an extra $40 to $90 a month depending on how much juice they use. We’ve created a calculator so you can see the exact increase, but there’s no easy way to calculate the damage to state prosperity in 2023. On Tuesday, January 3rd, regulators in three states took Eversource to a public hearing and “blame” it. Not everyone can reverse the higher charges that go into effect on Sunday.
6. Opioid Settlement Ends Years of Litigation
A landmark multistate settlement in March between Stamford-based Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family laid the groundwork for a series of shotgun deals that culminated in years of litigation with opioid drug manufacturers and distributors. I was. Connecticut will receive her $95 million of her $6 billion from Purdue and the Sacklers. This is a nationwide deal negotiated by Attorney General William Tong, also from Stamford. In total, the state will receive more than $600 million in payments from her, including his separate deals with Walgreen and CVS announced this month totaling $127 million. The deal brings new protections against opioid abuse and gives him hope that the scourge of the 21st century will abate a year after his 2021 death toll in Connecticut reached his fearsome 1,413. Raise. The opioid case is part of a long and deep investigation into Connecticut’s multi-state, multi-year investigation that included alleged price fixing by generic drug makers and multiple accusations of violations by Facebook and other social media companies. Department.
7. People’s Bank Merger Rough
Connecticut, the hub of banking headquarters in the late 1920sth In 2022, the largest domestic bank will cease to exist as Buffalo-based M&T Bank will absorb People’s United Bank in an $8.3 billion deal. It didn’t go smoothly. When the merger was completed on his April 2nd, leaving CEO Jack Burns with his obscene payment of $34 million, the biggest concerns were layoffs and the people’s Bridgeport headquarters. It was fate. M&T said it would cut 747 of his jobs in Connecticut, keeping about 2,000, but pledged to keep the regional hub at its former headquarters. The real crisis came in his September when M&T integrated the former People’s United account into its system. Many customers were unable to withdraw money, pay bills, or receive proper assistance. Elected officials called for an investigation by federal regulators. M&T promised to rectify it and by the end of the year the situation had stabilized.
8. Blackhawk contract down
Connecticut’s central identity as an aerospace and defense state didn’t crumble on December 5 when Sikorsky lost the race to replace the famed Black Hawk helicopter. But if the Army’s choice of Texas-based rival Bell to build the next generation of medium-lift attack rotorcraft continues for decades, the state’s capabilities and its manufacturing base Sikorsky, a division of Lockheed Martin, has teamed up with Boeing to market the Defiant-X. The Defiant X is more maneuverable than the Bell V-280 Valor range of tiltrotors that act like an airplane in flight, but slower. The original deal cost him $1.3 billion, but long-term sales for Black Hawk’s successor are estimated at his $80 billion. No one knows how this loss will affect his 8,500 employees at Sikorsky’s main plant in Stratford and Bridgeport, Trumbull, Shelton, or his 280 suppliers in the state. Hmm. Work is still going on for years to upgrade many of his 4,000 Black Hawks and their variants, built since the mid-’70s. And another race with Bell will determine who will build the next reconnaissance helicopter. It’s a move that has worked in the past, including when Sikorsky stole the search and rescue win from Boeing 15 years ago.
dhaar@hearstmediact.com
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