Copyright Hartford Courant
With Wall Street booming in recent years, Connecticut has been collecting billions of dollars in capital gains through the state income tax from the state’s richest residents. At the same time, 10% of the entire state population needs food stamp benefits in order to help feed their families. Those families have been struggling recently as the federal food benefits stopped with the government shutdown as of Nov. 1. State officials scrambled to fill the gap, and Gov. Ned Lamont now says the state will cover the full federal benefit that costs $72 million in Connecticut through the end of November. As the longest shutdown in the nation’s history continued Saturday, the families had been facing uncertainty and confusion as President Donald Trump’s administration is appealing a stern ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island that the full food benefits must be provided through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. At the same time, the administration told states that it was preparing to offer full benefits, while the U.S. Supreme Court then temporarily placed a hold on the full payments. “This herky-jerky back and forth has been driving people crazy,” Lamont told reporters. “Let’s take care of people. We can afford to do it. … We’re going to take care of the people on SNAP.” While the lowest-income residents are concerned about food, the wealthy in lower Fairfield County have been seeing their investment portfolios continue to grow. In Lamont’s hometown of Greenwich, state statistics show that the total amount of Connecticut adjusted gross income in the 2023 tax year was $18.8 billion. While top earners receive much more, the average income for more than 27,000 tax filers in Greenwich was $687,000. Greenwich and Darien ranked fifth in the nation for the fastest-growing number of millionaires from 2012 to 2022, according to a wealth report by the Henley & Partners consulting firm. Before a sell-off in technology stocks last week, Wall Street hit all-time records in late October that generated millions of dollars collectively for millionaires and billionaires in lower Fairfield County. That is why Connecticut has collected billions of dollars in surpluses in recent years, setting aside more than an additional $8 billion into the state pension funds since Lamont took office in 2019. But Republican state chairman Ben Proto blames Democrats for the high cost of living in Connecticut at a time when 350,000 residents receive food assistance and an additional 50,000 pregnant women, infants and children qualify for the federal Women, Infants and Children program that is known as WIC. All funding for WIC was cut off when the shutdown started, and the state has been spending $200,000 per day to cover the costs that include baby formula. “The Democrats have been going on and on about the loss of SNAP benefits and how badly Donald Trump is hurting Connecticut residents on SNAP,” Proto said in an interview. “Ten percent of the population of one of the richest states in the country can’t afford to buy bread, milk and diapers. Who put those policies in place that made it such that one in 10 people in the state need governmental assistance to buy food and diapers? It wasn’t the Republicans.” He directly blamed Democrats, including Lamont and legislators, for the high cost of living. “They’re the ones who have created the policies that put 10% of our population in a position that they need government help to buy simple food items to make sure their children don’t starve to death,” Proto said. “That’s going to be an issue in 2026.” Nationally, average grocery prices are up 2.7% over last year and up 1.4% since Trump took office in January, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. SNAP recipients, Proto said, are not buying luxury items. “They need help to buy basic food — milk, bread, diapers, formula — because they can’t afford to pay their bills in the state of Connecticut,” Proto said. “They can’t afford the highest electric rates. They can’t afford some of the highest taxes in the country. They can’t afford some of the highest insurance costs in the country. And somehow the Democrats want to say that’s the Republicans’ fault.” But Lamont directly said that Democrats have made progress on affordability with the largest middle-class tax cut in state history and taking steps to make community college free. Those are among the reasons, he said, that Democrats won a huge election sweep last week that included flipping 29 towns from Republican control to Democratic control. “Obviously, there’s a real concern about taxes, as well, when it comes to the cost of living,” Lamont told reporters. “We’ve done a good job in this state of holding down taxes, and I think people have some confidence in the local mayors to do the same thing.” When asked by The Courant, Lamont said, “Look, President Trump discovered it’s all about affordability. I don’t think we had to discover that. In 2025 and now 2026, I think it’s going to be about affordability and opportunity. This state and this country is pretty darn expensive. … We’ve reduced your income tax for middle-class families. This is the story that we’ve got to tell in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028.” SNAP still in court The Trump administration had said it would partially fund SNAP before eventually telling states that it was preparing full payment after two court rulings that ordered the payments. But state Attorney General William Tong and 24 other attorneys general filed a court brief that said that the program should be fully funded. “We are back to court to force Donald Trump to fully fund SNAP and to stop the President from purposely and illegally starving American families for political leverage,” Tong said last week. “He has the funds and the authority to fully fund SNAP today. He can do this right now. But he is choosing to bog this down in needless red tape and overly complicated calculations because he wrongly believes maximizing pain is good for his politics.” With the ongoing uncertainty surrounding SNAP, the Connecticut chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement encouraging the governor and legislative leaders to be mindful of the high stakes that are involved. The legislature will meet in special session at the state Capitol this week to consider setting aside $500 million to cover cuts by the Trump administration. “Children who experience food insecurity, defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food or nutritious food, are at an increased risk of multiple negative health outcomes,” the pediatricians said. “Children who are food insecure are more likely to become ill, develop chronic diseases, and have nutritional deficiencies. They are also more likely to become hospitalized and have increased medical costs. Children who experience hunger have impaired learning in school, are at increased risk of developmental delays and are more likely to experience emotional and behavioral challenges. Hunger is also harmful to parents. When families experience food insecurity, parents and children experience toxic stress and are at increased risk of developing physical health consequences and mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression.” Stock market bubble? At the same time that families are struggling to buy food, millionaires and billionaires are closely watching the stock market on Wall Street. The stock market has been booming in recent years, setting all-time records under both President Joe Biden and then under Trump. But some stock analysts fear a bubble in the artificial intelligence stocks that have been driving the market as some other stocks show often-sluggish results. Nvidia, a startup company that has become a key player in the AI world, became the first company with a market value of $5 trillion — worth more than many companies combined. The blistering speed of Nvidia’s rising stock value was shown as it passed $4 trillion in July 2025 and then $5 trillion soon after on October 29. While the daily volatility causes ups and downs every day, the jumps in Nvidia’s stock have been astronomical since the company went public in 1999. Rich get richer A study this year by the liberal Connecticut Citizen Action Group and Americans for Tax Fairness showed that the net worth of Connecticut’s 14 billionaires, who largely live in lower Fairfield County, increased by $33 billion, or 61%, since Trump assumed office in 2017. But statistics from Lamont’s budget office show that the wealthiest residents pay a large percentage of the taxes as the top 2.5% of tax filers paid 41% of the state income tax in 2022. At the other end, the bottom 49% of filers — representing essentially half of filers statewide — paid only 2.9% of the income tax. Less than 3% of the state income tax is paid by 830,000 filers who are earning less than $50,000 per year in adjusted gross income — for both singles and couples filing jointly. Filers earning more than $100,000 per year pay 85% of the income tax, while those under $100,000, representing 72% of filers, pay the remaining 15%, according to the statistics. The top 1%, which includes filers at $1 million and above, pays about 30% of the income taxes. In addition, the state is projected to collect more than $2 billion this year from the pass-through entity tax, which collects the lion’s share from entities controlled by wealthy small business owners. State statistics show massive differences in incomes between affluent Fairfield County and the state’s poorest cities. The average Connecticut adjusted gross income per tax filer in the 2023 tax year in New Canaan was $691,000, the highest in the state. Greenwich came in second at $687,000 per tax return, compared to $212,000 for Avon, $162,000 for Simsbury, and $157,000 per tax return in West Hartford. In East Hartford, the number dropped to $52,000 per return and Hartford was lower at $44,000. Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney of New Haven has proposed specific tax increases through the years on the wealthy, saying they have far more disposable income than the average middle-class worker who is trying to pay the bills. “Under the last Trump administration, Connecticut’s top 1% saved $1.2 billion in federal taxes, while working families saw crumbs,” Looney said earlier this year. “If Washington insists on handing billionaires another tax break, we will ensure some of that windfall comes back to the people of Connecticut to help deal with the massive federal cuts we anticipate.” Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
