Two years after the COVID shutdown, Connecticut and the nation spent 2022 digging out, a mixed year between the bookends of legalized sports betting at the end of 2021 and recreational cannabis sales at the start of 2023. The home state performed on par with the nation overall, re-elected a governor committed to a centrist path for growth and suffered a couple of shocks late in the year.
Below are my picks in order of how they stacked up not in shaping the business scene, but rather in how they affected — and will affect — the welfare of Connecticut families.
1. Growth fuels massive state surplus, tax cuts
It’s hard for Connecticut’s naysayer coalition to accept, but the state held its own in income gains and overall growth in 2022, a tough year of inflation everyplace. The CT economy grew at a 1 percent annual rate through September, not a great pace…