Connecticut Social Index Rises To Highest Point In 9 Years

HARTFORD, CONN. (AP) — A report on the quality of life in Connecticut may help lead lawmakers toward solutions for poverty, child abuse and other social ills, state leaders said.

The 1999 Social State of Connecticut, an annual report on the state’s quality of life, found that the state’s social health has improved to the highest level in nine years, but child abuse, health care costs and poverty are stunting the quality of life for many.

“It’s a road map for us. It’s a road map of where we’re headed and where we really need to change our course,” House Speaker Moira K. Lyons, D-Stamford, said Tuesday at a forum to discuss the report.

Ms Lyons and Senate Minority Leader M. Adela Eads, R-Kent, said they would review the report to see what changes might be made to the state’s health care plan for poor children, called HUSKY, to get more children enrolled.

Enrollment figures have not kept up with expectations, and Lyons said the state may expand the program to children’s parents in an effort to improve families’ health.

Social Services Commissioner Pat Wilson-Coker said she would examine the figures for racial minorities to see how programs and services might be changed to better help minority families.

Overall, the state’s social health index was 49 out of 100 – the best in nine years, but well below the 1970s, when Connecticut scored a 72. The report used figures from 1997, the latest year available.

“That was a good performance. Social health has improved, but not for everyone,” said Marc Miringoff, co-author of the study and director of the Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy.

The report, first released in December, showed that the gap between the rich and poor continued to grow – to the highest level in the state since 1970, Miringoff said.

In Windham County, the poorest county in the study, per capita personal income was $23,765 – less than half of the per capita income of Fairfield County, which was $50,423 in 1997, the report showed.

The report mirrored a national report released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute that showed that Connecticut’s rich got richer over the past 20 years, as the poorest lost ground.

The poorest fifth of state residents’ incomes dipped below $20,000 in the 1990s to about the same levels seen in the 1970s. For the richest fifth of the state, incomes surged past $170,000 in the 1990s, up from more than $110,000 two decades before.

The picture was brighter for infants and teenagers. The infant mortality rate has improved from a high of 17.2 deaths per 1,000 births in 1970 to 7.2 deaths in 1997. High school dropout rates, meanwhile, have decreased to the lowest level since 1973, and teen pregnancies leveled off, after rising in the late 80s.

But child abuse has increased steeply over the last 20 years, with about 45 children out of 1,000 referred in child abuse cases in 1997, up from about 10 children per 1,000 in the 70s, the report said. Suicides among people ages 15 to 24 have risen 36 percent over the same time.

The number of people without health insurance increased, as the amount of income people spent on health care decreased slightly. Violent crime was down in Connecticut in 1997, after sharp increases in the early 1990s.

Things got better for workers in Connecticut in recent years, the study showed. Unemployment is at the lowest level since 1990 and average weekly wages for factory workers were up in 1997 for the first time in three years. The report also noted that manufacturing jobs continue to shrink and are being replaced by lower-paying service jobs.

Housing costs remained high, but have become more affordable in 1997 than in the late 80s.