The word “mixed” in the headline for a Ted Nesi report on WPRI.com seems misplaced.  Michael Lynch’s report for the state government, by way of consultant IHS Markit, seems pretty negative to me:

Through 2022, Lynch predicts Rhode Island payrolls will grow by just 0.4% a year on average, a rate that would rank near the bottom among the 50 states, at 48th. …

Overall, IHS expects Rhode Island’s population and labor force to grow about 0.1% a year on average of the next 10 years. “This will rank among the lowest in the country,” Lynch noted, and is “reflected in our forecasts for lackluster employment growth.” …

“This would provide a useful crop of young and well-educated workers ready to enter the labor force and fill vacancies left behind by the aforementioned retirees,” he wrote. “Our forecasts indicate that the state will fail in this area – its 20- to 29-year-old cohort will contract over the next decade.”

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Nesi touts a “silver lining” in the “booming” housing market, but in context, that’s a negative.  Regulations and taxes are keeping the housing inventory in Rhode Island from growing (which means construction jobs are restrained, too).  In context, the more-accurate characterization would be that, however pitiful Rhode Island’s economy may be, the government is keeping our housing market even more suppressed.

This isn’t a mixed picture.  It’s an unadulterated portrait of how an overbearing government can drag down a state.