Here’s a possible solution to Connecticut’s transportation and infrastructure problems and the state’s current unemployment woes: a WPA-style building project. You’ve heard of the Works Progress Administration, right? It was FDR’s plan that put millions of unemployed Americans to work building public projects like roads, water mains, firehouses and dams. Look around you and you’ll still see us benefiting from that investment. But fast-forward 80 years …
Any reader of this column is all too familiar with the need for transportation investment in our state: our 7,000 miles of roads and bridges in “poor condition”, the $4.6 billion needed for wastewater treatment not to mention our rusting railroads. And everyone in Connecticut is aware of the unemployment crisis brought on by COVID-19 — 8.2% of the state’s labor force is out of work, translating to 153,000 people without jobs, most of them now drawing benefits from our rapidly depleting Unemployment Trust Fund.
