The Chafee jobs legacy

When Lincoln D. Chafee became governor in January 2011, the unemployment rate for Rhode Island residents was 11.4 percent. By November 2014, it had dropped to 7.1 percent.
In the same time frame, the number of people employed in jobs in the Ocean State went from 458,300 to 479,700.
While those numbers – and their regional rank – show a significant improvement in the ability of Rhode Islanders to find work, it does not say that Rhode Island is doing a great job at creating employment opportunities. And the state’s high standing in the drop in the jobless rate may have as much to do with how high it was to begin with, especially when compared to other New England states that have much lower unemployment rates. •

No posts to display