Lardaro: CCI unchanged in September

NINE of the Current Condition Index’s 12 economic indicators improved in September, according to University of Rhode Island economist Leonard Lardaro. / COURTESY LEONARD LARDARO
NINE of the Current Condition Index’s 12 economic indicators improved in September, according to University of Rhode Island economist Leonard Lardaro. / COURTESY LEONARD LARDARO

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Rhode Island’s Current Conditions Index remained unchanged at 75 in September compared with August, said Leonard Lardaro, a University of Rhode Island economist.

Lardaro also said the previous quarter would have fared better if the state had implemented “structural changes” beginning in the Great Recession and “continuing without end.”

He went on to say, “Such efforts would have reinvented our state’s economy, insulating us more completely from national economic weakness. But this is Rhode Island. We only began any meaningful reform efforts a year or two ago.”

His introduction to September’s CCI ended with him placing the responsibility for the state’s “endogenous mediocrity” on voters who “demand virtually nothing and traditionally are all too willing to settle for even less.”

- Advertisement -

Released Friday, between August and September the CCI remained at 75 in the month-to-month comparison. CCI measurements analyze the findings of 12 indicators; those higher than 50 suggest economic growth, while a value below 50 indicates contraction.

Rhode Island’s unemployment rate remained unchanged in September as well as in the year-to-year comparison.

September’s index found improvement in nine of the 12 measures over the year:

  • Employment service jobs, inclusive of temporary employment and a prerequisite for growth, gained 0.1 percent.
  • Rising for only the third time since August 2015, government employment gained 0.5 percent.
  • Labor force rose 0.7 percent, and on a monthly basis, climbed for the fourth consecutive time.
  • A timely measure of layoffs, new claims, fell by 19 percent, its second improvement in the last six months.
  • A 4.8 percent uptick was measured in U.S. consumer sentiment, its second improvement this year.
  • Retail sales rose by 1.5 percent in September, the measure’s third increase in the previous six months.
  • Private service-producing employment increased 1.2 percent.
  • A 10.8 fall was measured in the benefit exhaustions category in September.
  • Rhode Island’s manufacturing wage rose 6.8 percent.

The two measures to see negative impacts in September were:

  • Single-unit permits, which fell 6.9 percent in September and
  • Total manufacturing Hours declined 0.2 percent.

Lardaro said: “The continuing trend of declines in the manufacturing work week and weakness in employment service jobs does not bode well for our future economic momentum.”

No posts to display