Fasano Statement on New Unemployment Numbers

Hartford – Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) released the following statement regarding the Connecticut Department of Labor’s new unemployment and jobs numbers released today.

“To say that Connecticut is moving in the right direction is to completely ignore the challenges families are facing every day. While I sincerely applaud the businesses that were able to rise above and grow jobs, we cannot ignore the fact that the unemployment rate today is higher than it was at the same time last year, meaning that more people in our state are struggling with unemployment. That shows the state’s current fiscal policies are not working. We are one of only a few states that have yet to recover all jobs lost in the recession. In fact we are still over 20,000 jobs behind. New layoffs appearing in the news almost daily have become commonplace. And the numbers reported by the Governor’s office have had to be corrected more times than I can count after painting too rosy a picture month after month.

“The state’s Labor Commissioner himself has said that unemployment numbers can be misleading and when you factor in the serious problem of underemployment suddenly a 5.8 percent unemployment rate is actually more like a 12 percent unemployment rate, as reported in the Hartford Courant. Both of which are significantly higher than the national unemployment rate of 4.9 percent. Underemployment and a lack of high paying jobs are problems made worse by an unpredictable state budget that has pushed job creators out of our state.

“Governor Malloy and the Democrat majority seem content with the meager growth in Connecticut’s economy. They characterize that growth based upon a ‘new economic reality’ – the reality they have forced upon the state over the last six years. Connecticut is better than this. We can do better than this. But first Democrats have to recognize the problem before we can fix it.”