Perspectives, Policies & Practices - Spring 2017

Tag: economic

Economic Inequality in Fairfield County

I’ve always been aware of the certain economic and social bubble that surrounds the community I grew up in, as I have lived in Fairfield County for my entire life. Until now, I never truly looked into the economic status of surrounding counties. Luckily, from the start of my research, a comparison between my town and another appeared to be a widely researched display of economic inequality within Fairfield County. In my project, I focused on a few main drivers of the divide between the extreme wealth in one town, Greenwich, and extreme poverty in the other, Bridgeport. I looked at the history of these two towns to gain some context of the economies of these towns, and I specifically explored areas such education and public policy to see the causes and consequences of economic inequality.

Dougan Project 1 Essay

Dougan Project 1 Slides

Secaucus, New Jersey: A Portrait of Income Inequality

As a lifelong resident of the town of Secaucus in New Jersey, I have always been intrigued by the municipality’s economic health and background. In Project 1, I took my intrigue one step further and conduct a thorough analysis of the current status of inequality — specifically, income inequality — in Secaucus. My aim was two-pronged: (i) to show that, since the turn of the twenty-first century, the distribution of income in Secaucus has become increasingly uneven and less normally distributed; and, (ii) to explain why this development occurred and the consequences it has for the future of the town. Although my data was limited, I hypothesized that the income inequality has increased due to: (a) an influx of high-skilled workers in the town; and (b) the fact that upward income mobility has been largely limited to middle and upper income classes within the town. For a more complete analysis and reflection on my research, please see the attached links.

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