Job growth
Economist Gary L. Ciminero reports that Rhode Island has just completed the best two years of job growth in 10 years. He points out that the Ocean State has essentially recovered the 50,000 jobs lost during the “great recession” of 1989-1991. By March, our unemployment rate had dropped to 3 percent – not only the best it has been in 10 years, but one of the lowest rates in the country. Ciminero’s thrust is that the numbers – including those measuring continual job growth – contradict the pessimists who have suggested that Rhode Island is on the verge of some dramatic economic slowdown. Job growth in calendar 1998, said Ciminero, projected by some to be 1.4 percent, was actually 1.8 percent.
Consumer confidence across the country and here at home is at an all time high. In Rhode Island, people are buying new homes and remodeling old ones. Automobiles are selling at a record pace. Consumers are borrowing money again – and spending it.
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On a national scale, the stock market has enjoyed a steady string of record closings. The current economic expansion is the longest in peacetime history with uninterrupted growth for more than eight years. The future remains bright.
What does all this mean for Rhode Island? It means we should not get caught up in a lot of rhetoric and speculation when it comes to the economy.
The numbers are not deceiving – they are facts. And the facts seem to say that Rhode Island is indeed a good place to do business. Could it be better? Of course. The General Assembly needs to work harder to adopt measures that make it more attractive for businesses to create jobs here.
But the pessimism we can do without. If you are an entrepreneur, Rhode Island has colleges and universities, a highly trained workforce and a remarkably accessible airport. It also has a quality of life that stacks up with any in the country.
Rhode Islanders have long had a bit of an inferiority complex. Some of that has come about for good reason. But the big picture shows that Rhode Island remains a wise place to invest time, energy and capital. The numbers say it’s so.
Perceptions
The world, for the most part, is made of perceptions, not necessarily realities.
But it is realities, or rather the exaggeration of realities that shapes our perceptions.
That’s why the recent FBI raid on Providence City Hall and arrest of two tax officials — on the heels of imprisonment of a former governor — is so disturbing. It only adds to a perception of a state that traditionally has been politically corrupt, one that extracts an extraordinary toll on businesses.
While Providence’s renaissance has elevated the city’s and state’s image, the corruption serves as a neutralizer, at the very least.
At the beginning, the renaissance, the moving of rivers, was a vision not of politicians but of a small group of influential business people, many of whom have left the city and state – Terrence Murray, Michael Metcalf (deceased Providence Journal publisher), Richard Oster and others.
Then the renaissance, it would seem, became a vision, a dream, of a single individual, Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., whose latest is his three-cities vision, an ambitious plan to bring development from Providence’s Port to Smith Hill.
Does the vision expand beyond the mayor? Is this a vision that can survive a major scandal within his administration? These are questions that remain unanswered.
What we do know is that few events, or projects have done as much for Providence and the state as the revitalization of its capital city. Rhode Islanders, who were noted most for their pessimism, seem to have been buoyed by the Providence happening.
We can only hope that greed and political corruption will not topple the good that has been done. Providence and the state of Rhode Island have come too far to be derailed by foolish acts by foolish people.
