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(COMMENTARY) EVEN THE GOOD NEWS AIN'T SO HOT

By Bill Collins

How come I,

Do get the blues;

From reading so

Darn much good news.

The good news is that The Hartford is lowering its car insurance rates for

certain embattled customers -- divorcees, unmarried couples, gays, etc. The

bad news is that to benefit, you have to own a car. Many Nutmeggers don't.

Mostly such folks are poor, live in central cities, and have a dreadful time

getting to the supermarket. Those stores have prudently moved to the suburbs.

For the carless, getting to work is no picnic either.

OK, let's try another case. The good news is that poor people don't spend so

much time in court anymore. The bad news is that it's because they can't

afford a lawyer. Federal funding for legal services has been slashed, and the

scope of allowable cases severely narrowed. Public defender money is no longer

adequate for criminal defense either, and minorities here don't get picked

much for juries. In short, equality under the law has been effectively

repealed.

All right, here's some more good news. Connecticut's welfare rolls are

shrinking fast. The bad news is that more people are hungry and cold. Numbers

are up at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. And a relief agency in Norwalk

even reports, intriguingly, that there are now more people sleeping on the

floor. This all comes at the same time Tufts University reports other curious

good news about Connecticut's welfare reform. It seems our program is eighth

best in the nation. Pity the others.

And inside the welfare-reform arena, there is still more good news: workers

are being guided from dependence on charity into self-reliant jobs. The bad

news is that, nationally, there is only one such job for every three seekers.

The worst news in Connecticut is that we have only one job for every 4.5

seekers. But be of good cheer -- it's worse in New York.

Some really fine news did emerge last week from the Commerce Department. It

seems per capita income zoomed for the entire nation in 1997, more than double

the rate of inflation. That doesn't happen every year. Better yet, Connecticut

extended its lead as the richest state, even without counting dividends,

interest, capital gains, and the like. And to cap it off, for once the poor

nationwide seem to have gained a trifle on the rich.

But that seriously good news is not true in Connecticut. Against the tide,

we're still increasing our gap between rich and poor. Actually, that's

probably happening nationally too, if they just counted all those dividends.

Still worse news concerns our kids. As recently as 1991, Connecticut recorded

the second-lowest child-poverty rate of all the states. We've since fallen to

26th. That seems a bit incongruous for America's richest state, but the

reasons are scarcely a mystery. Nor should we expect improvement soon, since

it is state policies that are paving the way for our decline.

The withdrawal of welfare from hapless families is surely one major factor. So

is the withdrawal of education benefits. Women used to get high school

diplomas and college associate degrees while on welfare. No more. That means

more families living on a Wendy's paycheck forever.

Housing, the same. The state has stopped building it. Thus families are

doubling up, or paying higher rent. Food stamps have been cut too. Yes, child

care has improved a little, and kid's health care as well, but overall, our

state is gradually forcing more and more children into poverty.

So let's hope that being poor really does build character. Unfortunately, the

omens so far suggest that it only builds more poverty. I guess that's not

really news.

(Bill Collins, a former mayor of Norwalk, is a syndicated columnist.)