{"id":49527,"date":"2011-11-03T09:51:22","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T13:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=49527"},"modified":"2011-11-07T09:29:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T13:29:07","slug":"state%e2%80%99s-economy-battered-by-october-snowstorm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/11\/state%e2%80%99s-economy-battered-by-october-snowstorm\/","title":{"rendered":"State\u2019s Economy Battered by October Snowstorm"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hot Topics posts, UConn experts comment on current events and issues unfolding in the news.<\/em><\/p>\n

After a devastating storm last weekend that delivered a foot of snow in many parts of the state, felling branches and trees and leaving entire communities without power, UConn economist Fred Carstensen takes a look at the potential impact on the state\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Carstensen is a professor of economics and director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at UConn.<\/p>\n

Carstensen says the effects of the storm \u201cwill seep through the economy in hundreds of subtle ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could take as long as two years to recover fully,\u201d he says. The damage done by the storm, he adds, \u201crepresents a dead loss to the economy; resources were consumed that could have been used for productive purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

While tree trimming businesses, electricians, and generator manufacturers are benefiting from the storm, homeowners are bearing the brunt of the storm\u2019s damage, Carstensen says, and this will have a major impact on the state\u2019s economy over the longer term.<\/p>\n

He warns that stores can expect lower Christmas sales, especially on big-ticket items; restaurants will see less demand for meals; and car sales will likely plummet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that money will be taken away from everything from your Christmas budget to appliance purchases to going out to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with discretionary spending reduced, sales tax collections will ultimately be lower than they would otherwise have been \u2013 over an extended period of time.<\/p>\n

Carstensen does the math: Across 800,000 customers who lost power, say half incur significant costs. That\u2019s 400,000 people. If each simply incurred $100 in costs, that would take $40 million out of the economy. If each incurred expenses of $1,000 \u2013 which is more likely \u2013 that would take $400 million from the economy.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, says Carstensen, the state had not had time to digest the lessons from Tropical Storm Irene.<\/p>\n

With an estimated quarter of a billion dollars\u2019 worth of damage to the state from Irene, and a much larger bill for last weekend’s storm, he says, \u201cwe could be looking at an aggregate bill of $2 billion for the state. That\u2019s 1 percent of our annual output in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing forward,\u201d he says, \u201cwhat\u2019s really important is to figure out policies and investments to minimize the likelihood of this scale of disruption in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact information for members of the media:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fred Carstensen, professor of economics
\nCollege of Liberal Arts and Sciences
\nPhone: 860-305-8299
\nEmail: Fred.Carstensen@uconn.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Economist Fred Carstensen discusses the winter storm’s economic impact on Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":49519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-49527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 03:25:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49527"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49591,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49527\/revisions\/49591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/49519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49527"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=49527"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}