I find myself thinking of the tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders who are unemployed (including those who no longer tell government pollsters that they are looking for work) and the thousands of struggling self-starters and small-business owners and wondering what they think when they read the Providence Journal.  Consider:

The start of the new legislative session sparked raises of up to 22 percent for more than two dozen General Assembly staffers, a high-level promotion and the hiring of another former state lawmaker.

Promotions: Lawyer Frederic Marzilli was promoted to director of … Legislative Counsel … salary up from $90,458 to $121,566 a year. He replaces John O’Connor, who was given a new title — “senior legal counsel to the Speaker” — at the same $116,890 salary he had before.

And so on.  From a different segment of the same link:

[Matt] Jerzyk, who held a number of titles in Providence City Hall, including deputy city solicitor, has been named legal counsel for the House Labor Committee … Jerzyk also serves as legal counsel to the House Small Business Committee… He is being paid $2,500 a month for his work on the two committees…

Jerzyk is also city solicitor in Central Falls and consulting on Providence City Council President Michael Solomon’s campaign for mayor and former state General Treasurer Frank Caprio’s bid to regain his former job as treasurer.

And then there’s the Foster teacher complaining in an op-ed about pension reform:

The reduction and suspension of the cost-of-living adjustment for state retirees is just one component of the pension reform that the legislature adopted during the 2012 legislative session. The other two components that no one chooses to discuss are deep cuts to the defined benefit of the teacher or state employee and the additional requirement that they work years longer to attain their deeply reduced pensions.

Of course, circulation numbers suggest that much of Rhode Island’s struggling population isn’t reading the Providence Journal, perhaps because of demographic shifts, perhaps because they’re all too busy struggling, or perhaps because it’s become a conduit for sowing hopelessness among them, so why bother.