Economy
This news that Charlie McCarthy reports for Newsmax is not surprising: There are about 10 million unemployed workers in the U.S., and more than nine million jobs available, yet only 10% of job seekers say they’re looking actively and urgently, Axios reported Wednesday. About 15% say they’re looking actively but not urgently. About 45% said they’re…
On first look, Rhode Islanders might not be inclined to despair that our capital city ranks 89 among 150 cities reviewed for on the WalletHub list of “2021’s Best- & Worst-Run Cities in America.” Our state has been run so poorly for so long that being (roughly) middle-of-the-pack on a list is something of a…
The headline is, of course, that unemployment dropped to 5.8% in May, from 6.3% in April, which is nice (although it ought to be higher, given that we’re coming out of a pandemic-and-government-driven recession. But the state Department of Labor and Training’s press release paints a peculiar picture: The number of employed Rhode Island residents…
Many things are concerning about the homeless encampment in Providence that has been in the news lately and about the way the issue is being framed, but one thread that really sticks out is this, from Brian Amaral’s Boston Globe story: Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris, who represents the area, said Elorza should call a state of…
The clickbait part of move.org’s survey of people who’ve moved is the comparison of states, but that may not be very helpful. It isn’t clear, for example, whether the ranking of moves on the map is entirely people who crossed borders or includes internal moves. Indeed, a plurality of respondents moved within the same city.…
In another must-read column for the Cranston Herald, Steven Frias applies his historian’s rigor to the step-by-step details of how Woonsocket’s experience with a pension obligation bond (which I mentioned a few weeks ago) managed to make its preexisting pension-fund disaster even worse while giving the two essential elements for a pension obligation bond to…
Too often our reaction to ideas with which we disagree is to mock them or to dismiss them from the conversation. Although the impulse is understandable, and I’m certainly guilty of it, doing so is a mistake. Listening is how we understand, not only as a check on our own biases, but also as a…
Relatively little on-paper economic pain from COVID-19 makes it feel as if we’re getting away with something, but the bill will arrive at some point.
That quick lesson is why I’ve been meaning to mention this article from Newsmax: U.S. environmental regulators issued emergency fuel waivers on Tuesday to help alleviate shortages in reformulated gasoline in 12 states and the District of Columbia as supplies tighten five days after a cyberattack shuttered the nation’s biggest pipeline. … On Sunday, the U.S.…
A recent survey of Americans, as reported on Newsmax, finds that one in six “U.S. adult workers have stayed at their jobs because they don’t want to lose employer-sponsored health insurance.” That’s especially true for lower-income workers and minorities. Tying healthcare with employment is one of the more wrong-headed policy decisions our country has made in…