Haven’t We Had Enough, Rhode Island?

Ed Achorn just tweeted another masochist feather in Rhode Island’s cap — or maybe “another arrow in its back” would be a better metaphor.  The Ocean State achieved the dead-last place on Gallup’s Job Creation Index, this time around.

Of particular note, our partner at the low-outlier end of my monthly distance-from-peak-employment chart, Michigan, made Gallup’s top 10, this year.  In last year’s iteration, Gallup noted Michigan, up 32 points since 2009 that year, as the state with the most improvement.

What has Michigan been up to?

Let’s look at things in crass political terms to start.  Here’s Gallup:

Three of the five states with the longest track records at the top of the state job creation ranking — North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska — are strongly Republican in party affiliation. All three states with a long track record (at least four years) at the bottom — Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York — are heavily Democratic.

Last May, I ran the peak employment chart over several election cycles, color-coded for party control of the state legislature, and found a lot of switching toward Republicans, with such states doing a bit better.  But look at Michigan.

At the beginning of the recession, Michigan had a split legislature (Republican Senate and Democrat House) and a Democrat governor.  Over the next two years, it dropped from roughly 94% of peak employment to under 88%, while Rhode Island dropped from to a little under 92%.

In 2010, Michigan voters switched the House to Republican and put Republican Rick Snyder in the governor’s seat.  In the latest version of the chart, Michigan has almost caught back up with Rhode Island, which is now hovering at around 91%.

However, crass politics are not critical, policies are.  The bold marker in Michigan was its switch to right-to-work, last year.

Rhode Island needs to do something, and almost nobody on the political scene is even talking about policies with enough umph to turn things around.  Either they’ll have to start changing their tune, or Rhode Islanders will have to change them.

Otherwise, we should just get used to being last, and dead.

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