A University of Connecticut economist says the state was not hurt as badly by the recession as elsewhere, according to the Associated Press.
Professor Steven Lanza said Wednesday that because Connecticut did not have what he called a home building frenzy that occurred in other states it was spared the worst of the downturn. The recession began in 2007 as subprime mortgage defaults prompted a cascade of financial problems.
Lanza, who released the quarterly issue of the university’s “The Connecticut Economy,” said the recovery in the U.S. financial industry, which has a strong presence in the state, also helped blunt the recession’s full impact.
Connecticut’s unemployment rate was 9 percent in January, the latest month for which figures are available, below the national jobless rate of 9.7 percent in February.
