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An Essay By Alexandra Cali
I grew up on a cul-de-sac called Strawberry Patch Lane. Whenever I'm checking into a doctor's office or being carded at a restaurant in the city, people often comment on the name. A nurse once told me it sounded like the sort of place a grandmother in a fairytale ought to live. "Is it cute there? It sounds very cute." And it can be.
There are homes with shutters and hedges and long gravel drive-ways. There are high school kids who whip their Jeeps around corners, driving with the sort of reckless abandon that can go unnoticed on long winding streets in the woods. And the laughter that echoes out behind them hangs in the air for a bit, not having to compete with the sort of sounds that stack on top of one another in bigger cities. While the sun-dappled lawns and stacks of firewood on front stoops maintain a level of charm, Stamford is not without its flaws.
Fairfield county is often referred to as the "crown jewel" of the East Coast, due to its association with the affluence of old money families who settled along the water decades ago. This area has been deemed the 3rd richest county in the United States. The 16 billionaires from Connecticut that consistently make the Forbes list reside within this bubble. In the shadow of this overwhelming success, there is an unfortunate truth: Fairfield County has the worst income inequality in the nation.
According to a study released by the United Way of Connecticut, 40 percent of Stamford residents cannot afford basic needs such as housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and technology. Of that 40 percent, 10 percent live in poverty and 30 percent live at the poverty line. Because the level of income inequality is so highly stratified here, the United Way estimates that a family of four must make at least $77,832 to meet basic needs and live comfortably in this city. They note that this is much higher than the average for families living in other cities around the country.
Households that make a decent living by national standards still struggle to make ends meet in our community. And those who are living at or below the poverty line are at times made to feel invisible, going unacknowledged and largely unsupported by the 9,521 households in Stamford that make over $200k a year.
In the last few decades, the Connecticut General Assembly has tried with little success to change the tax structure in a way that gets the wealthiest residents to contribute more. Taxes on the highest incomes can help create revenue for public investments that boost the state’s productivity in the long run, without harming economic growth in the short term. Some may ask why this is a pressing issue, especially given the state of the world as a result of the pandemic.
Many, if not all, of the households that have been economically unaffected by COVID-19 have been able to maintain this status because their jobs allow them that luxury. In an area like Fairfield County, it's common to assume that people are able to continue working and making money because of services like Zoom.
But for low-income families, a national precedent has been set that they are expected to continue moving around as a function of their jobs. Both Stamford and Fairfield County are in the perfect position to give back to the service industry workers and first responders who are criminally underpaid, more likely to get sick, and less likely to have the funds to foot some of these hefty hospital bills.
Social class, wealth and political power are often passed down generationally within families. Fairfield County strongly demonstrates what happens when resources and opportunities are hoarded and never properly redistributed by the rich.
I do love where I grew up. I'm able to reflect on my childhood here with such affection because my family has been fortunate enough to never know economic hardship or struggle. I didn't have to worry about where my next meal was coming from as a child, meanwhile 57% of students in Stamford Public schools depend on free and reduced lunch programs. This number has increased since the beginning of the pandemic.
COVID-19 has exposed faults in our community that existed long before the virus reared its head. They have only been exacerbated by the widespread economic distress spurred on by the pandemic. You may be left wondering: "Where do we begin?" While many Stamford residents may be quick to rely on local government to address and bridge these divides, history has proven that the most effective and sustainable solutions emerge from community-led movements. This will require those born into privilege to proactively burst personal bubbles, and listen to the members of our city that have been voiceless and thus disregarded for so long.
