Of Connecticut’s largest cities, Hartford experienced the slowest economic growth between 2015 and 2016, according to a new Connecticut Town Economic Index.
Introduced two years ago by the Connecticut Department of Labor, the index uses four components to measure economic growth: business establishments, employment, inflation-adjusted covered wages and the unemployment rate.
While the cities of Waterbury and New Haven had the fastest overall economic growth from 2015 to 2016, Hartford’s growth lagged, the report’s authors said. When compared with 2010, however, when the employment recovery began in Connecticut following the Great Recession, all 169 cities and towns’ indexes showed growth in 2016, the index shows. And in 2016 alone, Hartford outranked the cities of Waterbury and Bridgeport on the index.
And at 9.4 percent in 2016, Hartford continued to post the highest unemployment rate, compared to the state’s other bigger cities.
The index is part of September’s Connecticut Economic Digest, a joint publication by DOL and the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
