Douglas Hall, Ph.D.

Amid public discussions about who should pay for significant new state investments in public education, decision makers and the public should understand more about the distribution of income and how it varies throughout our state. Determining who are Connecticut's "middle income families" is not as straightforward as it may seem; middle income in one part of Connecticut may be just barely enough to get by in other parts of the state. Connecticut's Self Sufficiency Standard - a measure of what it actually costs to make ends meet - clearly indicates that "getting by" in Stamford, for instance, costs much more than in Windham. For a two-parent family with two school age children, it costs about $57,174 a year to make ends meet in Stamford, compared to $43,827 in Windham. (March 2007)

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