PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s gross domestic product was estimated to have contracted at a 4.3% annualized rate, according to a report from the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council and the Center for Global and Regional Economic Studies at Bryant University released Tuesday.
The contraction was slower than the 4.8% annualized rate of decline in New England and the 4.7% rate of decline in the United States.
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The GDP estimation comes from the organizations’ Current Economic Indicator, which assesses 14 metrics calibrated to measure the state’s GDP growth.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, the state’s CEI had increased at a 2.2% annualized rate.
The 2020 first-quarter contraction was attributed to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – however, the report noted that the effects were “blunted” due to the major economic impacts coming in the second half of March, and more-severe impacts were expected to be represented in second-quarter figures. Despite the limited nature of the impacts on the first quarter, the economic toll was still projected to be “significant.”
The report also concluded that recovery from the present economic crisis is dependent on mechanisms that can mitigate or eliminate the health impacts of the pandemic.
Economic indicators measured include regional and national GDP; employment in various sectors, including leisure and hospitality and manufacturing; unemployment claims; sales and gross receipt taxes; and state nonfarm employment, among others.
“The industry breakdown of employment losses speaks to the fact that Rhode Island has one of the highest unemployment levels in the country,” said RIPEC CEO and President Michael DiBiase. “As a state, we are particularly reliant on leisure and hospitality, education, and health care, all sectors that are among the most affected by the current crisis.
“While the pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the Ocean State’s economy, Rhode Island’s economic vulnerabilities are not new,” and “despite strong economic performance in the last quarter of 2019, the CEI Briefing for Q4 alluded to the fact that the state’s persistent economic growth gap is compounded by an overreliance on low-wage industries,” DiBiase added.
The full report is available online.
