Money Talks
Already by 2007, pure private investment employment has broken through the 21,000-job level in Connecticut (Chart 1), about doubling the counts from 1996, and now 6,000 positions higher than at the turn of the century. In 1990, private investment employment counts averaged 7,300 statewide. Connecticut averaged 19,330 jobs in 2005 and the average wage per job in the industry was $310,734, not including benefits. That is not a misprint! This helps to boost Connecticut to the upper echelons among states in per capita income, average wages, household income, and average disposable income as well as taxes paid per capita to Washington. Political sway and influence is coming with the mounting capital accumulation, especially in reform legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley and movements to regulate hedge funds. However, small investors need to feel protected in the capital markets and transparency is paramount to this safety for the individual.
As Chart 2 shows, Connecticut has outpaced employment growth in the securities industry nationwide (which has seen a decline) since 2001 and has outperformed most other Northeast states that have specialized in securities industry employment. Connecticut has not only increased its percentage of investment jobs in the State's total covered workforce (from 1.0% in 2001 to 1.2% in 2005, about double the national percentage), but has also increased its concentration of employment in this high powered sector in relation to other states in the nation (the location quotient rising from 1.564 to 1.949, +.385, since 2001).
Only New Hampshire had more improvement in investment employment concentration (location quotient increase from 1.326 to 1.769, +.443) relative to other states in the nation in that time period. New Hampshire is cherrypicking Boston's mutual fund industry as a lower cost locale, while Connecticut is adding value by managing risk with absolute and high-performing returns, financial engineering, and "dollar hedging" expertise.
