Teen Employment Sinking in the Ocean State

Quick links: to download the printable PDF of this study click here.  See Media Release at end.

Related stories: Research Director Justin Katz discusses the issue on the Dan Yorke Show.

Abstract

Gainful employment is disappearing from the experience of the American teenager (ages 16 to 19), and increasing minimum wages are part of the problem. In Rhode Island, teen unemployment was 28.3% in 2011, more than double its 2007 low of 12.9%, and hours worked per week had fallen from 10.0 to 6.1.

Rhode Island’s minimum wage climb from $6.75 in 2004 to $7.75 for 2013 will have cost 597 teenage jobs. As teenagers’ employment has fallen and their average hours worked per week have decreased, the weekly working hours per 100 teens in the population has dropped 62% — and 79% for those without high school diplomas. Because 70% of working teens are in the retail or leisure/hospitality industries, a bold policy change such as eliminating the state sales tax would be especially beneficial to them.

Getting Teenagers Accustomed to Working

Chores and a lemonade stand become a newspaper route and a summer job in retail, then a professional trade following high school graduation. If college is in the picture, retail transitions to on-campus service work followed by some sort of internship, which lands the young adult at the entrance of a career path, degree in hand. Such is the classic progression of young Americans’ easing into the workforce, with the adventurous and innovative breaking off to build their own companies or invent new industries.

The United States’ extended jobs recession appears to have accelerated a disruption of this pattern. The change has been acutely felt in states that have trailed the nation’s meager recovery, such as Rhode Island. From 2003 to 2011, teenagers’ share of employment in all Ocean State industries fell from 5.7% to 4.3%, despite the fact that their overall percentage of the population held steady.

In 2011, states with minimum wages that exceeded the federal rate tended to have higher unemployment. High minimum wages disproportionately harm teenagers’ employment prospects.  So, not only are young adults in such states operating in dampened economies, but the jobs that they would typically seek are even harder to come by.

Policy Recommendation

With Rhode Island in desperate need of an economic turnaround, and because dedicated and well-rounded young adults will be critical toward that end, the state must reverse the working plight of its teenagers. The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity recommends that the General Assembly and Governor Chafee:

  1. Set Rhode Island’s minimum wage at the federal rate of $7.25.
  2. Consider a bold economic policy, such as eliminating the state sales tax, that would jolt the overall economy forward with especially beneficial effects for the teenage population.

Minimum Wage & Teen Employment

The effect of minimum wages on unemployment rates is a contentious issue among economists. Until the 1990s, they broadly understood increased minimum wages to harm employment. Since then, various studies have muddied the waters.

Given the myriad variables involved in a modern economy, small-scale policy changes can disappear in the data, and incremental minimum wage hikes may not register. Consensus is still strong, however, that low-skill, low-pay groups like teens are adversely affected by such increases.

Of the 24 states with unemployment over 8.0% for 2011, 11 had set their minimum wages above the federal $7.25 per hour. Of the 26 states with 8.0% unemployment or lower, only six had elevated minimums.  The average unemployment rate for former was 9.0%, compared with 7.7% for those in which the federal rate applied.

That gap doubles for teenagers (16-19 years old).  In states where the $7.25 minimum applied, teens’ unemployment rate was 21.7%. In the elevated-rate states, it was 24.3%. Chart 1 illustrates the point, narrowing the focus to the eight states with minimum wages over $8.00 per hour.

United States Unemployment and Teen Unemployment by State Minimum Wage, 2011

Rhode Island

In 2011, the Ocean State’s teen unemployment was 28.3%, the worst in New England, and more than double its 2007 low of 12.9%. Meanwhile, the weekly hours of the average employed RI teen dropped from 10.0 to 6.1.

Putting Rhode Island in context requires an acknowledgment that it simultaneously has the most-sickly economy in New England and the second lowest minimum wage, in 2011. The $7.40 per hour the state mandated for the lowest-paid employees within its borders was higher than only New Hampshire’s rate, regionally. Increasing the rate to $7.75 this past legislative session pushed the Ocean State past Maine, as well.

At first glance, these comparisons would seem to contradict the notion that high minimum wages are associated with higher unemployment. As suggested above, however, minimum wage is a secondary factor and is not sufficient to save a state economy that is already failing.

In an update for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity of their 2010 study, “The Teen Unemployment Crisis,” economists David Macpherson (Trinity University) and William Even (Miami University) found that Rhode Island’s increase from $6.75 in 2005 to $7.40 cost the state’s teens 397 jobs in 2011. Of that total, 306 were lost to those without high school diplomas. As the Center reported in June, Macpherson and Even estimate that the additional hike, to $7.75 per hour, will cost Rhode Island’s teenagers another 200 job opportunities.

In total, that $1 raise will have cost about 2.7% of employed teens valuable work experience, increasing to about a 7.1% loss among those without high school diplomas.

Table 1 shows the dramatic drop in teen employment from 2002 to 2011. For perspective, the 2010 Census found 66,423 Rhode Islanders 16-19 years old — about 32,663 without high school diplomas.

 

Table 1
RI Teen Employment Trends by Age and High School Diploma
16-19, no diploma 16-19 18-20, diploma
Employment
2002 (%) 38 49 64.3
2011 (%) 19 32.4 49.2
Change (%) -50 -33.9 -23.5
Ave. hours/week
2002 6.7 10.7 19.3
2011 2.8 6.1 13.1
Change (%) -57.6 -43.1 -32.3
Hours/100 teens
2002 254.4 522.2 1,240.20
2011 54 196.5 642.2
Change (%) -78.8 -62.4 -48.2
Note:“Change” percentages may differ due to rounding.Source: Census Bureau & Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Surve

 

Not only are fewer teens working, but those who have jobs are spending less time on them. The weekly hours worked per 100 teens in the total population captures the combined effects of these trends. Employment is evaporating from teens’ experience in Rhode Island.

Massachusetts shows that a high minimum wage doesn’t always correspond with high teen unemployment (see Chart 2). But if Rhode Island insists on imposing a high rate, it must take even more dramatic steps to improve its economy to counter-balance the downward pressure on employment.

U.S., Rhode Island, and Massachusetts Teen Unemployment, with Minimum Wage Changes, 2002-2011

One Solution: Eliminate Sales Tax

In early June, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity proposed its Zero.Zero plan to eliminate the state sales tax in Rhode Island.  Such a policy would be especially beneficial for teens.

The Center found that immediate elimination of Rhode Island’s sales tax would create 23,873 jobs. The data did not differentiate between industries or the demographic qualities of the newly hired workers, but it would be reasonable to predict that teenagers and other low-wage workers would benefit disproportionately and more immediately.

By far, Rhode Island teenagers are more active in the very industries that most feel the effects of the sales tax: retail and leisure and hospitality. Of teens who were working in 2011, 23.5% were in the retail industry, where they accounted for 8.8% of the workforce. Another 46.4% worked in the leisure and hospitality industry, accounting for 17.8% of all employees.

Altogether, 69.9% of working teens were in these two industries. Clearly, the healthier retail and leisure market in a zero percent sales tax environment would benefit the lowest-paid workers first, including Rhode Island’s young adults.

Conclusion

As with all of the challenges that it faces, Rhode Island has a choice between paths: the one we’ve been following and one that shifts decision-making back toward individuals working together in a less-regulated private economy. The first shifts resources under the control of government planners, and the second would allow Rhode Islanders to keep their money and make decisions in accordance with their own interests.

For all of the emphasis that the state has been placing on developing a “knowledge economy,” it has paid precious little attention to the need to foster work ethic and experience in its youth. Meanwhile, lavish public-school funding and special deals toward government-approved economic development have been requiring increasingly high tax burdens — in the form of the incrementally broadening sales tax, of ballooning property taxes, and of expanding licensing requirements and fees.

Instead, Rhode Island’s emphasis should be on getting people, especially young people, back to work, regardless of their field or pay scale.

***

MEDIA RELEASE: July 24, 2012

A 28.3% teen unemployment rate is sinking career building opportunities for Ocean State youth according to a report released today by the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity. This unemployment rate has more than doubled in recent years to become the worst in New England, and demonstrating even further weakness in the teen sector, the report also highlights that the number of hours worked has dropped by over 40%.

“If our state is to rebound in the long term, we need our working-age youth to learn to become productive. As part of their transition into a career that fosters self-reliance, teens are looking for valuable workplace experience and resume building, in addition to a little pocket change”, said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “Unfortunately our overly burdensome regulatory and tax structure, along with statewide minimum wage increases, are resulting in fewer opportunities for everyone and disproportionately harm our teens. This category would grade-out at yet another F for our state,” continued Stenhouse, referring to the Competitiveness Report Card published earlier this year by the Center.

According to the report, high minimum wage states had a 24.3% teen unemployment rate, compared with 21.7% for states at the federally mandated rate. Further, Rhode Island’s recent minimum wage hikes will cost almost 600 area teenagers a chance at an entry level job. Even for those young adults who were fortunate enough to find work, the average hours worked plummeted to 6.1 per week from 10.7.

As about 70% of working teens are hired in the retail or leisure/hospitality industries, the Center recommends two policy changes: lowering the state minimum wage rate to federal levels; and a phase-out the the state sales tax, which would not only reinvigorate the state’s economy, but would be especially favorable for the retail industry, creating new job opportunities for younger Rhode Islanders.

Today, July 24, is the National Day of Action to Raise the Minimum Wage. “The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity categorically rejects this ill-informed policy push. A minimum wage hike is yet another regulation that strangles businesses; our report provides clear evidence of the negative, unintended consequences that meddling in complex economic issues can often bring about,” concluded Stenhouse.

The complete teen unemployment report can be downloaded from the Center’s website at www.RIFreedom.org .

Earlier this year, the Center published a policy brief detailing the negative effects of the state’s occupational licensing policies on opportunities for low income and entry level workers. Another report – Zero.Zero – detailed the positive economic effects of eliminating the state sales tax.

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-partisan public policy think tank, is the state’s leading free-enterprise advocacy organization. With a credo that freedom is indispensable to citizens’ well-being and prosperity, the Center’s mission is to stimulate a rigorous exchange of ideas with the goal of restoring competitiveness to Rhode Island through the advancement of market-based reform solutions.

RI out-Migration to border Counties in MA and CT

County Out-Migration Should Be Alarm to Municipalities

For nearly a decade, taxpayers have been leaving Rhode Island. With cities and towns facing wave after wave of difficult decisions, a change of policy course is critical. Between 2003 and 2010, the net migration out of the state has left Rhode Island with 24,455 fewer income-tax-paying households with a total of $1.2 billion of annual income.

Why RI Should Opt Out of Exchanges and Medicaid Expansion

Quick Links: download a printable PDF of this brief here;   go to our Healthcare home page here ; read our policy brief about a Healthcare Freedom Act here;   

News Coverage: GoLocalProv article – good discussion in the comments section

High Cost of State Implementation

The federal government’s healthcare law — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) — if fully implemented in Rhode Island, will impose a high cost for the Ocean State in terms of budgets, jobs, dependency, and privacy. In upholding the law as constitutional, the Supreme Court alleviated one very narrow area of uncertainty but did nothing to repair problems with the policy.

Rhode Island will experience multiple negative ramifications if a state-based exchange and the Medicaid expansion options are put into practice, including:

  • Unfunded budget costs that Rhode Island does not have the capacity to absorb
  • Job-killing employer mandates and penalties that would otherwise be avoided
  • Increased dependency on government for health care and other services
  • Government intrusion on privacy in the highly personal areas of healthcare and family finances

Despite its lofty claims, PPACA will not lower health care and insurance costs and will do nothing to increase the supply of quality healthcare services in our state. The law will also lead to new federal and state taxes and cost the economy even more jobs.

State officials are already envisioning the exchange as what might be termed a dependency portal. Using information that residents enter for the purpose of determining health program eligibility, the exchange will alert users to a menu of other benefits for which they qualify, expanding Rhode Island’s public welfare system to an unknowable degree.

Policy Recommendation

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity recommends that the state of Rhode Island halt its headlong lunge into expensive and intrusive policy changes concocted in Washington, D.C., and join with other states that have taken a more skeptical view of the promises of the poorly vetted health care reform.

  1. Repeal the executive order creating RI’s health benefit exchange and replace it with patient-centered, market-based reforms, as described in the Center’s Healthcare Freedom Act policy brief.
  2. Opt out of the Medicaid expansion program, declining partial federal funding that would increase dependency on publicly financed health care and lead to increased budget deficits.

The Health Care End Game

Within two hours of the Supreme Court’s determination that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is constitutional, three Rhode Island public officials held a related press conference. Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts has made health care a focus of her time in office; Secretary Steven Costantino heads the Executive Office of Health & Human Services; and Christine Ferguson is the newly appointed director of the Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange.

During the conference, the trio promoted the inchoate exchange as more than a Web site for comparing products. Rather, they described what small-government advocates might see as a dependency portal. Based on information that users provide in order to determine eligibility for health premium subsidies, the site would also offer other forms of public assistance and subsidies that they could claim.

The prudence of government’s promoting its services as if they were private-sector products is a matter of legitimate debate. But the idea of a dependency portal does highlight one critical fact: The exchange, and PPACA generally, will expand the size, cost, and scope of state government.

Compounding Government Costs

Much has been made of the federal government’s 100% coverage of direct expenses for expanding Medicaid under PPACA. All childless, able-bodied residents with household income below 133% of the federal poverty level (i.e., individuals below $14,856 in 2012) will for the first time be eligible for health care through Medicaid.

Under the assumption that the state and federal governments will be somewhat aggressive in promoting enrollment, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that these new Medicaid recipients in Rhode Island will cost an additional $1.8 billion from 2014 to 2019, or about $301 million per year. However, costs will not be evenly distributed across those years, with increasing participation as time goes on. In 2019, the total cost for these newly eligible Medicaid recipients will be approximately $414.0 million.

The federal aid covering the Medicaid expansion will have phased down from 100% in 2014 to 90% in 2020. Therefore, in the unlikely event that total Medicaid spending does not increase from 2019 to 2020, the annual cost to Rhode Island taxpayers that year will be about $41.4 million. (The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity inferred this annual total using the ratio of total state and federal spending in 2019 to total state and federal spending for 2014-2019, as provided in Table 4 on page 38 of the Kaiser report.)

But that total doesn’t account for the “woodwork” effect, which suggests that people who are currently eligible for Medicaid but have not applied will do so as implementation of the reform draws attention to the program. In Rhode Island, this population includes:

  • All children under 19 and pregnant women in house-holds at 250% of the poverty level, as well as all parents with children under 18 and household income below 175% of the poverty level.
  • Seniors (over 65) and disabled adults who qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or have income below the federal poverty level and have limited resources.

The federal government will assist with this new spending at its standard rate, which Kaiser estimates at 53-1/8% for Rhode Island over the six years, leaving the state to cover $30 million of the $64 million tab. (Note that the latest RI Executive Office of Health and Human Services Annual Medicaid Expenditure Report puts the federal contribution “typically” at 52.47%.)

Again, this spending will not be evenly distributed by year. With the same assumptions for 2020 as above, the annual cost to the state at the end of the examined period will be $6.9 million. In total, therefore, the Medicaid expansion portion of PPACA will represent new annual service costs to the Rhode Island taxpayer in the neighborhood of $48.3 million.

A third cost component that must be added to the total is administration. A 2010 Heritage Foundation study found that “administrative expenses add an average of 5.5 percent in addition to total (federal and state) benefit costs, and that, on average, the federal government pays 55 percent of total administrative costs.”

Taking all of these factors into account, the push for expanded enrollment will result in around $452.3 million in annual Medicaid spending. Of that, the State of Rhode Island will be responsible for $58.9 million in 2020. At that time, about one in four Rhode Islanders will be directly dependent on the Medi-caid program for health care.

The good news, from the Supreme Court’s ruling, is that states cannot be forced to participate in the expansion through the threatened loss of all federal Medicaid assistance.

Exchanges: More Costs

Where Medicaid leaves off, at 133% of the federal poverty level, subsidized premiums through the health care exchange will pick up, providing public money to families up to 400% of the poverty level. That’s $92,200 for a family of four, in 2012. The subsidies will come via advance federal tax credits, but there are five major cost factors of concern at the state level.

First, federal assistance toward start-up and operation expenditures for exchanges will end after 2014. Stan Dorn, of the Urban Institute, notes that states will thereafter have to come up with some reliable funding source — perhaps “surcharging insurance premiums; assessing health plans, employers, or individuals; appropriating state General Fund dollars; or otherwise.”

In Massachusetts, as part of its recent state-based health care reform, the exchange charges participating insurers a fee equivalent to 3% of premiums. Writes Dorn, “The insurers then pass on this cost to purchasers of coverage.”

Second, Rhode Island taxpayers will have to subsidize costs, through the exchange, associated with benefits that the state requires plans to offer beyond federally designated “essential benefits.” According to the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, Rhode Island leads the nation in health care mandates.

Third, state-based exchanges will be the mechanism for imposing penalties against “large” businesses (those with 50 or more employees) that either do not offer health benefits or that require employees to share more than a federally designated maximum amount of their cost.

Consider a business with 50 employees who work at least 30 hours per week, but that is unable to provide health care benefits beyond its other compensation. If a single employee acquires a subsidy through a state-based health benefit exchange, the employer will be responsible for $40,000 in annual penalties. For many, that will be substantially higher than the costs of hiring an additional employee.

Fourth, PPACA imposes tighter “community rating” standards on the individual and small group markets, within and outside of exchanges. Broadly speaking, in the “small group” market (employers with 100 or fewer employees), Rhode Island’s already-restrictive statutes forbid insurers from varying their premium costs by more than four times. That is, one family plan covering a spouse and children cannot differ by more than four times another such plan. PPACA reduces the differential to three times and limits family types to “individual” and “family.”

Plainly put, community rating lowers prices for plan members who actuarially should pay higher premiums by increasing them on those who should pay lower premiums.

This relates to the exchanges because, if Rhode Island decides to open its exchange to large groups, then the community rating scheme will apply to all such plans in the state for the first time ever. This rule apparently applies even if no insurers utilize the exchange for this purpose.

Finally, state officials’ vision of an expanded dependency portal will produce an unknowable increase in recipients of food stamps, cash payments, and other forms of public welfare whom the exchanges rope in as a bonus feature. These costs will span multiple layers of government and will be compounded to the extent that they require additional expenses to administer and maintain.

None of these five cost drivers applies if the state does not initiate and maintain a health benefit exchange.*

Danger Cubed: More Regulation, Less Freedom, Lost Privacy

Arguably more substantial than the direct financial costs of the Medicaid expansion and health benefits exchange is the danger created through the new authority that PPACA grants to the state and federal governments.

That danger comes first through dependency. Under the Medicaid expansion, 25% of Rhode Islanders will be direct wards of the state, when it comes to health care. Under the state exchange, up to 57% of Rhode Islanders will be eligible for health care handouts. And the expanded menu of the dependency portal will deepen families’ reliance on the state.

The danger comes second through a new ease of regulation. As health benefit exchanges absorb a greater percentage of the industry, local and national bureaucrats will be able to introduce new mandates and requirements not as legislation passed by duly elected members of the General Assembly or Congress, but simply as new requirements in order for plans to qualify for the exchange. Alternatives will be increasingly diffi-cult to procure, and costs will be forced upwards.

The danger comes third through the loss of privacy and financial intrusion. In order to qualify for Medicaid coverage and health care subsidies, Rhode Islanders will regularly have to inform the state about minute details of their lives. Indeed, it is likely that even families that receive no assistance at all will be faced with the same standardized application process.

In this way, two of the most intimate aspects of a person’s life — finances and health — will be collected through a single agency in a single location for the great majority of Rhode Islanders.

Conclusion

For all of this expense and intrusion, the state will not likely experience any reduction in the overall cost of health care, and Rhode Islanders will likely see the quality and availability of the care that they receive worsening. A Beacon Hill Institute study of Massachusetts’ health care reform, after which much of PPACA was modeled, found cost increases across the board — in and out of government, in an out of public assistance programs, and across tiers of government.

The reason, according to the researchers, was that the reform increased the demand for health care services without increasing the supply. The most alarming manifestation of this dynamic appeared in the state’s emergency rooms.

Across the country, there has been a noticeable decline in enthusiasm for exchanges among states that had begun work on them shortly after PPACA passed Congress. North Dakota, New Hampshire, Idaho, and South Carolina are among the states resisting the federal timetable to implement these insurance “marketplaces.” Kaiser Health News reports that, by the end of June, “only 14 states and the District of Columbia have so far passed legislation authorizing the exchanges.”

At Rhode Island Lt. Governor Roberts’s June 28 press conference, the three public officials made the familiar point that the availability of preventative, regular care might reduce the utilization of more-expensive emergency services. To the contrary, with wait times likely to increase for family physicians, and with greater portions of the population accessing subsidies for premiums and other expenses, the savings for which Rhode Islanders are being asked to sacrifice privacy and self-reliance may never materialize.

 

* Whether employer penalties ultimately depend on state-initiated exchanges is likely to be the subject of political dispute and litigation. However, the penalties are triggered by employees’ receipt of premium assistance, and PPACA Sec. 1401, which creates those subsidies, refers to “an Exchange established by the State under 1311.” Sec. 1311 describes state-initiated exchanges, but not federally initiated exchanges. It is Sec. 1321 that empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a federal exchange for use in a state.

RI Exchange Director does not Understand Free-Markets

Click this link to hear the clip: press conference-wpromentions-clip

At the State’s press conference following the Supreme Court’s decision, WPRO’s Steve Klamkin brings up our Healthcare Freedom Act proposal to Healthcare Exchange Director, Christine Ferguson, who responded by claiming that the current state exchange is already market based.

Ms. Ferguson does not apparently understand what a free-market is. While she and the Governor may believe they are setting up some kind of market-based “exchange”, it is a far cry from what a true free-market exchange would look like:

  • It is not a free-market exchange when consumers are COERCED to buy something
  • It is not a free-market exchange when it LIMITS the # of private companies that are allowed to sell their products on the exchange
  • It is not a free-market exchange when there are over 69 state and federal MANDATES specifying what coverage must be included in insurance products
  • It is not a free-market exchange when provider premiums are subject to strict PRICING LIMITS
  • It is not a free-market exchange when provider reimbursement rates are mandated by a government agency
  • It is not a free-market exchange when a STATE BUREAUCRACY has to be put in place to run it
  • It is not a free-market exchange when it falls under the FEDERAL AUTHORITY of the Health and Human Services department
  • It is not a “free”-market exchange when insurance provider fees and TAXPAYER FUNDING are required to run the bureaucracy to and to subsidize the purchases of some

In summary, the FREE-MARKET is an exchange in and of itself. It needs no funding, no regulations, and no bureaucracy … consumers choose!

Rhode Islanders want to control their own, very personal healthcare decisions, including:

  • the FREEDOM to purchase insurance or not
  • multiple CHOICES when it comes what insurance products are available
  • ACCESS to affordable and quality care

The only way to achieve these goals is to unleash market forces by removing restrictions and regulations and introducing competition and consumer/patient choices. Our Center’s Policy Brief explains in some detail.

Read the entire policy recommendation here.

Go to our Healthcare homepage here …

 

 

 

 

 

Healthcare Exchanges in RI Should be Replaced with a Healthcare Freedom Act

Download a PDF of the complete policy brief here; go to Healthcare home page here

In 2010, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) amid great controversy. Passage of the bill did not resolve the dispute, and the law has been a source of uncertainty for state governments around the country.  Moreover, the Supreme Court’s ruling that the law is constitutional did not resolve the instability:

  • There is a substantial likelihood that PPACA opponents in Washington, D.C., will be able to stymie implementation and funding of the law or even repeal it, depending on who ends up controlling the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and/or the White House after the 2012 elections.
  • Multiple provisions of the law, notably services defined as “essential,” are left to the whims of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and will be readily adjusted by future administrations.
  • With the Supreme Court’s recent decision, a movement will surely begin to pass an amendment to the Constitution of the United States making all or part of the law a violation of the founding document.

Therefore, Rhode Island must take the lead — as it has with pension reform and the Global Medicaid Waiver — in ensuring that its residents maintain access to health care service through the maintenance of choices, control of costs through free-market mechanisms, and confidence in the quality of care provided.

Changing Rhode Island’s current arrangement, vis-à-vis health care, must be a top priority for public officials and engaged citizens, alike. The state leads the country in the number of mandates that it imposes on all health plans within its reach. Partially as a result, only three insurers are willing to operate within its borders, and only one of those offers individual plans for direct sale to consumers.

Policy Recommendation: Enact a Health Care Freedom Act for RI Citizens

While there are many policy reforms to consider, the recommendations in a Health Care Freedom Act will put the Ocean State’s health insurance sector back on a path that produces higher levels of competition, provides more choices for consumers, and shields Rhode Island from current and future federal mandates.

  1. Repeal the governor’s executive order creating PPACA Health Insurance Exchanges.
  2. Apply for a State Innovation Waiver to free RI from certain provisions of PPACA, including exchanges.
  3. Enact a Health Care Freedom Act that would:
    1. Open up competition by allowing interstate sales to permit Rhode Islanders to purchase health insurance plans from approved providers in other states.
    2. Allow an “opt out” provision from the state’s currently burdensome level of health insurance mandates and require insurers to openly display the original mandates not included.
  4. Pass an amendment to the state constitution to prohibit the federal government from ever requiring Rhode Island residents to buy health insurance.
  5. Pass a resolution calling for amendment of the federal Constitution to invalidate PPACA.

Rhode Island faces an important decision: whether or not to continue down the path of creating an exchange as described by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Beyond that, Rhode Island must decide whether to rely on the promises of the legislation’s supporters that such policies serve to correct the problems American citizens face in finding affordable health insurance.

Download a PDF of the complete policy brief here …

Minimum Wage Hike Will Cause Loss of 200 Teen Jobs in RI

Watch this video by LearnLiberty.org to see how increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment among low-skilled workers

On the heels of a national report that painted a bleak employment picture for teens, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity issued a policy note today that shows that the Rhode Island General Assembly has made the teen jobs situation even worse in the Ocean State when it raised the state minimum wage by 35 cents to $7.75.

 According to updated data made available to the Center from an earlier study(i) by nationally recognized economists, Rhode Island teens are projected to see 200 fewer jobs this year as a result of the minimum wage hike. This loss, 1% of teens employed in 2011, will hit especially hard on those who do not have high school degrees; this group is expected to suffer 75% of the anticipated loss.

Rhode Island’s teen unemployment rate in 2011 (28.3%) is already 3.4 percentage points higher than the national average of 24.9%. The minimum wage increase will make this discrepancy even worse.

The data, which will be part of a more comprehensive teen employment report the Center plans to release in July, is “yet another example of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts syndrome that is depressing our state’s growth,” said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. Continual small increases in taxes and regulations are often implemented for compassionate reasons, but it is the contention of the Center that the cumulative effect of these polices has been devastating for area businesses, for the state’s economy, and especially for those seeking work.

“Imagine that because of this minimum wage increase two hundred more Rhode Island teens are not going to have the chance to earn a paycheck, to learn important business skills, or to build their personal résumés,” concluded Stenhouse.

(i) “Update of Evan and Macpherson, 2010.” Economists David Macpherson (Trinity University) and William Even (Miami University) released a study in 2010 that examined the impact of the federal minimum wage increase between 2007 and 2009. 
 
Media Coverage:
6/19/2012: Prov. Business News, Minimum Wage Bump Will Cost 200 Jobs
6/19/2012: GoLocalProv, Minimum Wage Hike Will Cost 200 Teen Jobs, Group Says

Progress Report: 2013 Budget Does Not Improve Failing Report Card

Quick Links: go to Report Card home page; 2013 budget fails to be bold

Download a PDF of this Progress Report here …

When the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity released its “Report Card on Rhode Island ‘Competitiveness,'” in February, Rhode Islanders had reason to believe that the General Assembly would do something to address the state’s most pressing issue: jobs.  The last time the unemployment rate was below 11% was in June 2009.

Since February, almost two thousand more Rhode Islanders are out of work, and even more than that gave up and left the labor force.  Perhaps the worst news, though, is that the legislature and its enacted budget did nothing to improve the economic climate of the state and arguably made things worse.

The Report Card

The “Report Card on Competitiveness” ranked Rhode Island nationally and regionally in ten categories: tax burden, business climate, spending & debt, employment & income, K-12 education, energy, infrastructure, public sector, health care, and living & retiring in RI.  For half of those categories, Rhode Island received Fs, meaning that the state ranks very poorly in New England and in the United States.

In no category was Rhode Island’s grade higher than D+, which the state achieved only in K-12 education.

Areas Outside the Economy

Because the report card addresses a variety of aspects of life in Rhode Island, it would be possible for the General Assembly to make improvements in one category at the expense of another.  A worsening score in the energy category, for example, might correspond with improvements in overall business climate.  With its scores so consistently low, however, Rhode Island has no areas of strength to compromise for the sake of improving weaknesses.

The two notable areas in which lawmakers would likely assert positive action, during this legislative session, are education and infrastructure.

With respect to education, the budget made three substantial changes that legislative leaders present as improvements:

  • Combining the Board of Regents for elementary and secondary education with the Board of Governors for higher education and creating a “chancellor” position overseeing all public education in the state.
  • Accelerating the incremental implementation of the state’s new funding formula.
  • Creating an Information Technology Investment Fund to consolidate IT improvements and provide a dedicated funding stream from land sales (excluding land freed up along I-195).

Despite grand assertions made by House Finance Chairman Helio Melo (D, East Providence) during the budget debate, however, bureaucratic restructuring is not obviously a route toward improved results.  Indeed, if a combined board of education creates the opportunity to stifle the forces of reform, it could be a step backwards for the state.

As for the funding formula, while it may represent a more equitable means of allocating resources where they are most needed, the change represents little more than a reshuffling of dollars. Moreover, money is arguably not the critical area in need of reconsideration.

Even the one provision that looks likely to provide true advancement of the state’s education system, investment in IT, is not clearly a net improvement.  The IT Investment Fund will receive land-sale proceeds, but the budget gets the ball rolling with an authorization for $45.3 million in new borrowing.

Debt plagues the state’s infrastructure advancements, as well.  Between T.F. Green Airport and central landfill improvements, the General Assembly authorized an additional $214 million in debt.  That is in addition to $209 million of bond authorizations that will appear on the ballot in November.

Rhode Island is already 47th in the nation and fifth (of six) in New England for state and local debt per capita, according to the report card.  During the House budget debate, Melo informed the representatives that state government’s total debt currently stands at $1.7 billion, requiring annual debt service of $299 million.

This could be the year that the state breaks $2 billion in total direct debt owed.  (Additional obligations, such as pensions and other post-employment benefits [OPEB] are exponentially larger.)

Asphyxiating the Private Sector

Perhaps the most notable example of infrastructure improvement at the expense of other areas of competitive weakness is the authorization of tolls on the Sakonnet River and Jamestown Verrazano Bridges.

It is true that Rhode Island’s bridges are the most deficient in the nation, but tolls are not a clear answer for two reasons.  First, Rhode Island is also worst in the nation for highway cost effectiveness, meaning that a focus on funding will contribute to, rather than alleviate, the problem.  Second, the tolls will place an exorbitant burden on a region that’s already suffering.

An analysis by the Ocean State Current found that the island and lower bay communities dominated the lists of population and employment loss, over the last decade.  Juxtaposing those trends with median income suggests that the people who’ve been struggling the most are those least able to afford hundreds or thousands of dollars in new transportation expenses.

The imposition of regional tolls is not the only area in which the General Assembly constricted Rhode Island’s private sector.  Under the guise of cleaning up licensing laws, the budget added an estimated $1.8 million to the direct cost of doing business in the state.  Whether it’s $25 license renewal fees for hairdressers and manicurists, a $550 fee for in-state wholesalers of frozen desserts, or a $1,090 re-examination fee for physicians, the burden falls most heavily on individuals and small-business owners who are simply trying to participate in the Rhode Island economy.

The same is true of the $11 million in new sales taxes being levied against taxicab drivers, pet groomers, and high-end clothiers, among others.  Last year, hairdressers across the state successfully lobbied to avoid taxes on the services that they provide.  This legislative session, the restaurants successfully quashed Governor Lincoln Chafee’s move to impose a dramatic increase of the meals tax.

It appears that the state government is intent on probing the various segments of Rhode Island’s economy to find areas of lobbying weakness.  Industries able to mount strong public defenses will be spared while others won’t.  The first test is taxes; the second is fees.

Government Self-Preservation

It is true that the General Assembly’s budget for fiscal year 2013 (FY13) represents a slight decrease from its revised budget for FY12 — down to $8.10 billion from $8.12 billion.  However, the budget that the General Assembly enacted one year ago was supposed to hold FY12 spending at $7.70 billion.  In FY11, the final number was $7.72 billion.

In other words, new revenue and debt is translating directly into government expenditures, with a two-year jump of approximately $400 million.

The growth in full-time equivalent (FTE) employees that the budget authorizes is another indication.  During the second term of Governor Donald Carcieri, the number of authorized FTEs declined 2,077, from 16,417 in 2006 to 14,341 in 2010 (numbers differ due to rounding).  Consequently, the ratio of public workers to private-sector workers brought Rhode Island its only grade above a C on the Center’s report card: an A-.

With the FY13 budget, the total FTEs authorized has returned to 15,026, making up approximately one-third of the reduction.  At the same time, the state’s economy has continued to erode, so the number of FTEs per 100 employed Rhode Islanders has returned to its pre-reduction level. There is a clear disconnect between the public and private sectors.

A specific example may be found in seemingly innocuous government restructuring.  In order to process the millions of dollars in federal stimulus money earmarked for Rhode Island, Governor Carcieri created an Office of Economic Recovery and Reinvestment (OERR), currently with a staff of seven.  For FY13, OERR will be transformed into the permanent, state-funded Office of Management and Budget, with an initial staff of eleven.

Yet another example of government’s preservation of its own interests at the expense of the overall economy can be found in article 22, which allocated $2.6 million as a partial bailout of the locally administered Central Falls pension plan.  During the restructuring of the city’s finances through the receivership and bankruptcy processes, police and fire retirees experienced benefit reductions up to 55%.  With state funds, the maximum reduction will now be 25% through FY16, for most retirees.

In effect, a year and a half of revenue from increased professional licensing fees are going to mitigate the harm that Central Falls’ mismanagement did to its personnel. Alternately, the Central Falls bailout could have been funded through the elimination of the OERR now that federal stimulus dollars are drying up.

Competitiveness Is About Priorities and Decisions

On the night it was unveiled, House Minority Leader Brian Newberry (R, Burillville, North Smithfield) referred to the General Assembly’s revision as a “status quo budget.”  But the status quo for the state of Rhode Island is characterized by economic decline, and continuing on that path is a choice.

Between the February release of the Center’s report card and the final passage of the budget, the General Assembly chose to bolster government at the expense of private citizens struggling to build a life in one of the harshest economic environments in the United States.  Between now and the legislators’ return to their chambers, the next round of choices will be voters’.

2013 Budget Fails: Who’s Really Running our Lives?

Quick Links: further analysis of 2013 budget; Report Card on RI Competitiveness

2013 Budget Fails to be Bold

I don’t know about you, but the spectacle of General Assembly members congratulating each other for passing a self-proclaimed “bold” 2013 Budget for Rhode Island and outwardly celebrating by pointing out the tax hikes that they didn’t impose on our citizens and businesses might make you think that our state’s economy is “just fine”.

The measure of a good budget should not be mild improvements to a bad budget proposed by the governor. A few legislators, who understood the shortcomings and economic harm the budget would inflict on some, saw their common sense amendments systematically shot down, one after another.

The whole charade is disturbing to me and should be troubling to all citizens; it is indicative of the tax and spend culture that has become so firmly ensconced on Smith Hill

For example, with regard to the new tax on taxi services, consider cab drivers, who, on average, earn pay near the poverty level. All they want is the freedom to earn a living of their choice. Instead, because of the new sales tax on their industry, they will now see their business, their tips and their profits reduced; they will have to jump through hoops to collect and remit the sales tax to the government; and they will suffer the professional ignominy of having their service trade singled-out as one that must help fund the state’s voracious spending habit. Do you think that today … taxi drivers feel that they are in full control of their own lives?

The Political Class calls this tax an “investment” that is necessary for what they deem are more important programs. Most of us just call it more “wasteful spending” to feed their never-ending appetite for government dependency.

How long will it be before they come after your business sector? After all, in the past few years, a number of industries have been threatened with new tax increases, and regrettably, not all were able to escape the assault.

When I speak with pro business groups, even they consider it a “victory” when certain industries, who have good lobbyists, somehow managed to elude taxation – at least for now. What is the matter with our state? These are not victories. These are symptoms of a culture of failure. What Rhode Island needs is a new “winning” culture.

What our state needs is a new, pro business tax policy that will lead to economic growth and more jobs. The 2013 budget fails in this regard.

What our state needs is to upgrade our standing in all those national categories where we rank last or near the bottom. The 2013 budget fails in this regard.

What our state needs is real relief for the massive pension and health benefits liabilities facing our cities and towns. The 2013 budget also fails in this regard.

What our state needs is freedom of choice for disadvantaged students and families who are condemned to a failed school. The 2013 budget fails in this regard, as well.

And yet, they celebrate. And no one else steps forward to lead.

I am left wonder how many Rhode Islanders are wondering themselves about who’s running their lives. Do we each really still own that sacred freedom? Or is the State now our boss? One that dictates and manages more and more parts of our individual lives by herding us into more and more collective, politically-created buckets?

Do not be fooled by all the self-aggrandized back-slapping. Unless you can afford a strong lobbying group, they are likely scheming to manage you and your business next.

Read our Zero.Zero Sales Tax Executive Summary here …

The Whole Truth

Task Force Stirs Controversy in Warwick

Are local governments unknowingly or purposely hiding the truth from their residents?

How do you solve a problem if some don’t think there is a problem?

An debate is underway, and the sides are taking shape. On one side are the City of Warwick, its local newspaper, and state officials. On the other side are current and former Warwick city council members, a scholar from a nationally recognized think tank, National Review, and our own Center for Freedom & Prosperity.

A locally published interview with a member of the national pension task force, assembled by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, has caused a stir in Warwick, puzzling the Mayor, confusing the local paper, and leading to an online rebuttal. Even the Providence Journal has covered the action.

On May 24, the Warwick Beacon published an article from an interview with Eileen Norcross senior research fellow and lead researcher on the State and Local Policy Project with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, attempting to refute her warnings that the City of Warwick is not accurately representing the true scope of the liabilities in its locally administered pension plans. Norcross published a pie-chart depicting what she calculates as the true budget snapshot for the city. See the pie-chart here.

In citing Mayor Avedisian’s puzzlement by Norcross’s figures, and in misstating facts itself, the article is an example of the complexities involved in this important issue for cities and towns in Rhode Island.  A point-by-point clarification, “Wake Up Warwick,” was subsequently posted by Norcross as a rebuttal to the Warwick Beacon article.

Further, National Review Online has also published an article in support of Norcross’ perspective.

At question is the “discount rate,” or “rate of return,” utilized by most government agencies to value long-term pension liabilities. Many economists believe that government actuaries use higher rates than they should, which ends up understating the scope of the liability. If rates that are commonly used in private industry were to be utilized, the pension liability would be 2-3 times larger in many cases. What politician would want that kind of information to come out?

Is this arbitrary accounting practice done out of habit, or ignorance or, worse, is it done to purposefully deceive the public by kicking the can down the road and forcing future administrations to deal with the true scope of the problem?

The Center for Freedom & Prosperity takes the position that this debate — and this level of transparency — should take place in every city and town in Rhode Island. We strongly urge concerned citizens to publish or otherwise distribute the Open Letter to Municipalities: Tell Us The Truth previously published by our Center.

NY Times Echos Pension Task Force Warnings

The article below reinforces the concept that our Center’s pension task force has been saying for many months … that state and municipal entities are dramatically understating the true scope of their unfunded pension liabilities.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 27, 2012

Public Pensions Faulted for Bets on Rosy Returns

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH and DANNY HAKIM

Few investors are more bullish these days than public pension funds.

While Americans are typically earning less than 1 percent interest on their savings accounts and watching their 401(k) balances yo-yo along with the stock market, most public pension funds are still betting they will earn annual returns of 7 to 8 percent over the long haul, a practice that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently called “indefensible.”

Now public pension funds across the country are facing a painful reckoning. Their projections look increasingly out of touch in today’s low-interest environment, and pressure is mounting to be more realistic. But lowering their investment assumptions, even slightly, means turning for more cash to local taxpayers — who pay part of the cost of public pensions through property and other taxes.

In New York, the city’s chief actuary, Robert North, has proposed lowering the assumed rate of return for the city’s five pension funds to 7 percent from 8 percent, which would be one of the sharpest reductions by a public pension fund in the United States. But that change would mean finding an additional $1.9 billion for the pension system every year, a huge amount for a city already depositing more than a tenth of its budget — $7.3 billion a year — into the funds.

But to many observers, even 7 percent is too high in today’s market conditions.

“The actuary is supposedly going to lower the assumed reinvestment rate from an absolutely hysterical, laughable 8 percent to a totally indefensible 7 or 7.5 percent,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a trip to Albany in late February. “If I can give you one piece of financial advice: If somebody offers you a guaranteed 7 percent on your money for the rest of your life, you take it and just make sure the guy’s name is not Madoff.”

Public retirement systems from Alaska to Maine are running into the same dilemma as they struggle to lower their assumed rates of return in light of very low interest rates and unpredictable stock prices.

They are facing opposition from public-sector unions, which fear that increased pension costs to taxpayers will further feed the push to cut retirement benefits for public workers. In New York, the Legislature this year cut pensions for public workers who are hired in the future, and around the country governors and mayors are citing high pension costs as a reason for requiring workers to contribute more, or work longer, to earn retirement benefits.

In addition to lowering the projected rate of return, Mr. North has also recommended that the New York City trustees acknowledge that city workers are living longer and reporting more disabilities — changes that would cost the city an additional $2.8 billion in pension contributions this year. Mr. North has called for the city to soften the blow to the budget by pushing much of the increased pension cost into the future, by spreading the increased liability out over 22 years.

Ailing pension systems have been among the factors that have recently driven struggling cities into Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Such bankruptcies are rare, but economists warn that more are likely in the coming years. Faulty assumptions can mask problems, and municipal pension funds are often so big that if they run into a crisis their home cities cannot afford to bail them out.

The typical public pension plan assumes its investments will earn average annual returns of 8 percent over the long term, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Actual experience since 2000 has been much less, 5.7 percent over the last 10 years, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. (New York State announced last week that it had earned 5.96 percent last year, compared with the 7.5 percent it had projected.)

Worse, many economists say, is that states and cities have special accounting rules that have been criticized for greatly understating pension costs. Governments do not just use their investment assumptions to project future asset growth. They also use them to measure what they will owe retirees in the future in today’s dollars, something companies have not been permitted to do since 1993.

As a result, companies now use an average interest rate of 4.8 percent to calculate their pension costs in today’s dollars, according to Milliman, an actuarial firm.

In New York City, the proposed 7 percent rate faces resistance from union trustees who sit on the funds’ boards. The trustees have the power to make the change; their decision must also be approved by the State Legislature.

“The continued risk here is that even 7 is too high,” said Edmund J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a research group for fiscal issues.

And Jeremy Gold, an actuary and economist who has been an outspoken critic of public pension disclosures, said, “If you’re using 7 percent in a 3 percent world, then you’re still continuing to borrow from the pension fund.”

The city’s union leaders disagree. Harry Nespoli, the chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group for the city’s public employee unions, said that lowering the rate to 7 percent was unnecessary.

“They don’t have to turn around and lower it a whole point,” he said.

When asked if his union was more bullish on the markets than the city’s actuary, Mr. Nespoli said, “All we can do is what the actuary is doing. He’s guessing. We’re guessing.”

Vermont has lowered its rate by 2 percentage points, but for only one year. The state recently adopted an unusual new approach calling for a sharp initial reduction in its investment assumptions, followed by gradual yearly increases. Vermont has also required public workers to pay more into the pension system.

Union leaders see hidden agendas behind the rising calls for lower pension assumptions. When Rhode Island’s state treasurer, Gina M. Raimondo, persuaded her state’s pension board to lower its rate to 7.5 percent last year, from 8.25 percent, the president of a firemen’s union accused her of “cooking the books.”

Lowering the rate to 7.5 percent meant Rhode Island’s taxpayers would have to contribute an additional $300 million to the fund in the first year, and more after that. Lawmakers were convinced that the state could not afford that, and instead reduced public pension benefits, including the yearly cost-of-living adjustments that retirees now receive. State officials expect the unions to sue over the benefits cuts.

When the mayor of San Jose, Calif., Chuck Reed, warned that the city’s reliance on 7.5 percent returns was too risky, three public employees’ unions filed a complaint against him and the city with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They told the regulators that San Jose had not included such warnings in its bond prospectus, and asked the regulators to look into whether the omission amounted to securities fraud. A spokesman for the mayor said the complaint was without merit.

In Sacramento this year, Alan Milligan, the actuary for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, recommended that the trustees lower their assumption to 7.25 percent from 7.75 percent. Last year, the trustees rejected Mr. Milligan’s previous proposal, to lower the rate to 7.5 percent.

This time, one trustee, Dan Dunmoyer, asked the actuary if he had calculated the probability that the pension fund could even hit those targets.

Yes, Mr. Milligan said: There was a 50-50 chance of getting 7.5 percent returns, on average, over the next two decades. The odds of hitting a 7.25 percent target were a little better, he added, 54 to 46.

Mr. Dunmoyer, who represents the insurance industry on the board, sounded shocked. “To me, as a fiduciary, you want to have more than a 50 percent chance of success.”

If Calpers kept setting high targets and missing them, “the impact on the counties won’t be bigger numbers,” he said. “It will be bankruptcy.”

In the end, a majority decided it was worth the risk, and voted against Mr. Dunmoyer, lowering the rate to 7.5 percent.