The Ocean State managed to hop away from last place on the November Jobs & Opportunity Index, a broader measure of our economy than the unemployment rate.

Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI), November 2017: A Step Away from the Precipice?

With some help from the downward-trending Arkansas and Louisiana, Rhode Island managed to hop away from last place on the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI) in November, moving from 49th to 47th. The November edition includes new numbers for seven of the 12 datapoints.

Employment was down again, 519 from the previously recorded number, while labor force edged up 226. Owing to a significant upward revision of October’s numbers, RI-based jobs increased 1,900. Personal income, although still down from the first quarter, increased an annualized $225 million (about 0.5%), while state and local taxes increased by $20 million (about 0.6%). On the welfare side, Medicaid increased by 180 enrollees, while SNAP (food stamps) dropped again, by 628. (Problems providing the benefit may indicate that the decrease isn’t based on Rhode Islanders’ need, but on the system’s failure.)


Rhode Islanders need a credible alternative to the status quo and its destructive progressive ideas. You can help.

Click here to find out more >>>

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity is the Ocean State’s leading voice against the wreckage caused by our state’s progressive agenda.

As the state’s leading research organization, advancing family and business friendly values… the mission of our Center is to make Rhode Island a better place to call home – to raise a family and to build a career.

While progressives value government-centric, taxpayer-funded dependency… our Center believes in the value of hard work and the free-enterprise system.

We understand that in order for more Rhode Island families to have a better quality of life, that more and better businesses are needed to create more and better jobs.

Your donation will help us fight the union-progressive movement and, instead, advocate for pro-family, pro-business policies and values.

Please make a generous, tax-deductible gift to support our Center today!

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The first chart shows Rhode Island still in the last position in New England, 47th in the country. Regional leader New Hampshire slipped to 2nd for the first time in a long time, losing out to Wyoming. Vermont and Maine both fell, although only to 18th and 20th place, respectively. Massachusetts remained at 31st, but Connecticut fell into the bottom 10 with Rhode Island and is now 41st.

The second chart shows the gap between RI and New England and the U.S. on November Jobs & Opportunity Index. In both cases, RI’s gap eased a little. Switching to the official unemployment rate, RI’s gap narrowed more slightly.

Results for the three underlying JOI factors were:

  • Job Outlook Factor (optimism that adequate work is available): RI remained 21st.
  • Freedom Factor (the level of work against reliance on welfare programs): RI remained 41st.
  • Prosperity Factor (the financial motivation of income versus taxes): RI remained 47th.

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity is the Ocean State’s leading voice against the wreckage caused by our state’s progressive agenda.

As the state’s leading research organization, advancing family and business friendly values… the mission of our Center is to make Rhode Island a better place to call home – to raise a family and to build a career.

While progressives value government-centric, taxpayer-funded dependency… our Center believes in the value of hard work and the free-enterprise system.

We understand that in order for more Rhode Island families to have a better quality of life, that more and better businesses are needed to create more and better jobs.

Your donation will help us fight the union-progressive movement and, instead, advocate for pro-family, pro-business policies and values.

Please make a generous, tax-deductible gift to support our Center today!

Tax Cuts & Jobs Act

Federal ‘Tax Cuts & Jobs Act’ Should Ease RI Budget Deficits

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 20, 2017

State Budget Will Benefit from Federal Tax Reforms

Economic Growth Will Boost Sales and Income Tax Revenues

Providence, RI – Ironically, Rhode Island’s political class, incessantly in search of new revenues, is criticizing the recently passed “Tax Cuts & Jobs Act,” which could generate more statewide revenues in a more responsible way than any other scheme they have devised themselves.

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity points out that because individuals and businesses necessarily reside in some state, that the economic growth – expected to result from the federal tax reforms – will lead to a boost in state revenues.

In Rhode Island:

  • With about 80% of its residents soon to keep – and spend – more of their hard-earned paychecks … state sales tax revenues will increase
  • With more businesses to keep more of their profits, more and better paying jobs will be created … resulting in more state income tax revenues
  • With more businesses earning more profits and pass through incomes … more capital gains tax and normal income tax revenues will be collected, not to mention increases to individuals’ 401k or other equity positions
  • And, best of all for Rhode Island, it’s the federal government that must deal with the positive or negative budget implications … meaning that the state revenue increases described above come with no strings attached and with no risk.

Further, the reality of the federal reforms, often the target of scorn by the Rhode Island’s political leaders, could mean that more businesses choose to relocate or become established in American, and in states like Rhode Island.

“It is alarming that state officials would deny tax cuts to families and businesses, just to advance their partisan class-warfare narrative,” commented Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “Because of these federal tax reforms, Rhode Island will no longer need to subsidize taxpayer-funded corporate hand-outs in order to see more and better paying jobs organically grow in our state.”

On the negative side, under the reforms passed today, because state and local income and property tax deductions (SALT) will be limited to ten thousand dollars per year, high-income households and high-value property owners may end up paying more in taxes. This unfortunate circumstance should not be blamed on the federal reforms but, rather, on the state and local governments who have been excessively imposing taxes on its residents … and which have unfairly relied on federal taxpayers in other states to subsidize their high levels of taxation.


Rhode Islanders need a credible alternative to the status quo and its destructive progressive ideas. You can help.

Click here to find out more >>>

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity is the Ocean State’s leading voice against the wreckage caused by our state’s progressive agenda.

As the state’s leading research organization, advancing family and business friendly values… the mission of our Center is to make Rhode Island a better place to call home – to raise a family and to build a career.

While progressives value government-centric, taxpayer-funded dependency… our Center believes in the value of hard work and the free-enterprise system.

We understand that in order for more Rhode Island families to have a better quality of life, that more and better businesses are needed to create more and better jobs.

Your donation will help us fight the union-progressive movement and, instead, advocate for pro-family, pro-business policies and values.

Please make a generous, tax-deductible gift to support our Center today!

show less


The Center has long-maintained that Rhode Island’s corporate welfare based economic development strategy is not sufficient to spur robust economic growth and jobs creation. Instead, the Center has advocated that broad-based, pro-growth tax and regulator reforms – like those that just passed the US Congress – that will lessen burdens on every business and most families in our state – are the only means by which more and better companies will produce more and better-paying jobs.

According to the Center, it is organic economic growth, not corporate welfare schemes, that can alleviate the problems suffered by Rhode Island employers and families … as exemplified by bottom-10 national rankings in such broad-based indexes as: overall state business climate; Family Prosperity Index, Jobs & Opportunity Index; occupational licensing burdens; and the recently released poverty report.