State leaders look to 2017 for reaping 2015-16 policy efforts

IT'S IN THE  DETAILS:  Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor believes that the economic-development policies and tools that the Raimondo administration has set in place in its first two years are starting to yield significant payoffs. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
IT'S IN THE DETAILS: Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor believes that the economic-development policies and tools that the Raimondo administration has set in place in its first two years are starting to yield significant payoffs. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

Two years ago, Rhode Island had an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, which while still the highest rate in New England was 2.5 percentage points less than it had been at the end of 2013 and the lowest it has been since March 2008.

Private employment gained 8,000 jobs in the year prior to Gov. Gina M. Raimondo taking office in 2015. And according to the Department of Labor and Training, the state has added nearly 13,000 private jobs in the last two years, as the unemployment rate has continued to fall, to 5.3 percent in November.

So all in all, the state is continuing to move in the right direction.

Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor makes the argument that the state is just starting to reap the benefits of groundwork that the Raimondo administration has been laying. From projects that are starting to take shape in the former Interstate 195 lands in Providence to continuing developments at the Quonset Business Park, Raimondo and her team have been chalking up real wins for Rhode Island, at a pace that seems to be accelerating.

- Advertisement -

Mr. Pryor does not seem content to rest on his laurels, either, citing a six-year time frame for turning the region around, with the first two as the time to set up policies and programs, and getting preliminary authorizations and approvals as the development ball starts rolling. He expects that years three through six are the ones in which the state will see a more accelerated pace of development and job creation.

With the most recent spate of good news, Gov. Raimondo and Mr. Pryor have earned a certain amount of credibility. Now we will see what 2017 brings. •

No posts to display