Rhode Island Economy
Bruce Landis had an article in the Sunday Providence Journal with the telling title, “Few, but enthusiastic, riders.” The “few” are people actually taking advantage of the new length of commuter rail to Wickford. The train goes on from Providence to Boston. Data from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority show monthly rider- ship increasing from…
Justin liveblogs from the Senate’s “Moving the Needle” Summit.
Rhode Island’s unemployment rate dropped to 10.2%, after spending a couple of months at 10.4%, but at the same time, the Ocean State remains one of only two states above 10%. Moreover, the other one, Nevada, has made up more than a 1-percentage-point gap to reach a tie for last place. That said, the following…
Justin writes live from a five-hour, four-panel economic conference put on by the RI House of Representatives.
Feeling hopeful, RI?; “top priority” is shown, not stated; RI gets fatherless children first; surviving sans regulation; surviving sans net income; and surviving sans a documented framework for working together. Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…
As it happens, somebody forwarded to me the following Wall Street Journal political diary entry by Allysia Finley on the same day that the Providence Journal’s Philip Marcello reported that the Republicans in the Rhode Island House are considering championing the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s proposal to eliminate the state’s sales tax. Continue…
After two months of unexpectedly strong employment growth, Rhode Island’s surge abated. Unemployment held at 10.4%, leaving the state at second worst in the nation, with Nevada rapidly making up the distance, and the number 3 California finally slipping below 10%. According to survey data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the pace…
Since the U.S. Census department released its latest state-by-state population estimates, it has been widely reported that Rhode Island was one of only two states to lose population from 2011 to 2012. The other was Vermont. However, as with the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s findings in September, looking more deeply reveals that the…
The word “entrepreneur” has been thrown around Rhode Island a lot in recent months and years. To most people, one suspects, concepts like economic development, entrepreneurialism, knowledge economy, twenty-first century workforce, and skills gap blur into a mosaic of sounds-good promises. The idea is that “they” (the folks in positions to modify public policy) are…
Single-family home sales in Rhode Island continued to edge toward equilibrium, in November, meaning that the number of sales increased at an accelerated rate, while the inventory of houses on the market continued to go down. The median sales price continued to go down, too, but its rate of decrease remained steady. Continue reading on…
