The Employment Situation In Rhode Island Is Getting Worse – Bucking National Trend
Happy Easter from everyone at the Center to you and your family! We hope you had a great holiday weekend.
We wish we had better news to deliver. Unfortunately, the employment situation in Rhode Island is getting worse, bucking the national trend. While state politicians crow each year about not implementing broad new taxes, the unfortunate truth is that by nickle-and-diming residents and by not implementing aggressive reforms Rhode Island will continue to lose ground, nationally.
We now have two months of decreases in key indicators:
- 1,300 fewer Rhode Islanders were working or looking for work in March compared with February.
- 600 fewer were actually working.
- Employers based in Rhode Island had 300 fewer jobs available to be filled.
As other states have moved to increase economic freedom for families and business, Rhode Island is losing ground by standing still… to reverse course, the state must work quickly to reduce its onerous tax and regulatory burdens.
However, there is no indication that any political leader in Rhode Island has the courage to steer the state’s ship in the right direction. Encumbered by blind-dedication to a bloated budget, which itself is the state’s primary problem (with all of its taxes, fees, and mandates), lawmakers have put forth no vision and are stuck in the rut of continuing the policies of stagnation.
Why is this the case? In the coming weeks, the Center will be releasing a major report on the cost of collective bargaining in the Ocean State. This will be the longest and most in-depth research project the Center has ever undertaken on any topic. We invite you to be on the lookout for this critical report.
