Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI), February 2019: Employment and Jobs Turn Down

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Given the short time between reports, only three of the 12 datapoints of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI) have changed for February, but the changes are important. After a disappointing downward revision of Rhode Island’s employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) wiped away most of the employment progress Rhode Islanders had made in 2018, February showed an additional downturn. That downturn didn’t change the index ranking or the subrankings, so the Ocean State is still 47th in the country.

Click for full PDF including national table

Employment was down another 570 people from the first-reported number for January, and the labor force dropped 951. An additional 1,400 jobs based within the state joined the 9,000 that disappeared the month before.

The first chart shows RI remaining last in New England on JOI. Although underlying scores moved, the three measures that changed did not cause any variation in rank from the month before across the country.

In New England, New Hampshire leads the region, in 3rd place, nationally. Vermont remained in 12th place, and Maine in 18th. Massachusetts is still 36th, and Connecticut stands at 42nd.

New England Jobs February 2019 Race To First Place

The second chart shows the gaps between RI and New England and the United States on JOI, both staying about the same. That was true of the third chart, also, which shows the gaps in the official unemployment rate.

United States Jobs February 2019 Scores
Unemployment Rate Rhode Island Jobs February 2019

Results for the three underlying JOI factors were:

  • Job Outlook Factor (optimism that adequate work is available): RI remained 24th.
  • Freedom Factor (the level of work against reliance on welfare programs): RI remained 42nd.
  • Prosperity Factor (the financial motivation of income versus taxes): RI remained 47th.

See here for the corresponding post focusing on employment from the Ocean State Current.

Click for full PDF including national table

This week’s “Progressive Land of Make Believe Bad Bills of the Week” are the so-called Fair Employment Practices legislation; House bill 7427 and Senate bill 2475. The legislation that could impose the most extreme employment burdens on Rhode Island businesses than in any other state in the nation.

March, 2019 – the Bad Bill of the Week: So-Called Fair Employment Practices Legislation is Immoral

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Once again, politically correct legislation is being advanced in the General Assembly based on a progressive-contrived myth; legislation (H5659 and S0509) that could impose the most extreme employment burdens on Rhode Island businesses than in any other state in the nation – all for an imagined problem that does not exist!

Mandating equal income outcomes by advancing political inequality is immoral and un-American. Watch this video for more discussion and why this legislation is also not necessary:

Progressive lawmakers and activists pretend that a multitude of state and federal protections against wage discrimination, enforced by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), do not already exist.

Currently, Rhode Island law clearly prohibits wage discrimination for “equal work” on “the same operations”. Who can disagree with this? However, the proposed legislation would blur this clear language and change the standard to “comparable work” under “similar working conditions”.

These fuzzy and divisive new regulations would be harmful to businesses, leading to frivolous complaint after frivolous complaint filed by employees against employers. Already with one of the most hostile business climates in America, Rhode Island should not impose more burdens on its valued job-producers.

Without documenting any evidence of systematic discrimination, not covered by existing law, this #Unfair2Employers legislation would set new, highly subjective wage-discrimination standards that are wholly unfair to job-producers. With ridiculous new definitions of acceptable wage determination practices, severe employer penalties will be devised and meted out by unelected government bureaucrats at the Department of Labor and Training.

Supporters of the legislation also pretends this is a “women’s rights” issue, when in fact a whole litany of politically-correct groups, favored by progressive politicians, are included in the new definitions. Existing laws cover these groups as well.

In the real world Rhode Island does not need more job-killing regulation … we simply need more education and better enforcement of existing laws.

Similarly, earlier versions of the bill in 2018 were named “Progressive Land of Make Believe Bad Bills of the Week” are the so-called Fair Employment Practices legislation; House bill 7427 and Senate bill 2475.

The Rhode Island business community is comprised not just of good business people, but also generous and fair employers. However, in the progressive land of make believe, Ocean State employers regularly practice discriminatory and bigoted compensatory practices against women and other politically-protected groups.

H5541 is the Bad Bill of the Week. The legisaltion would create a big brother Rhode Island health database to track information - without your consent.

Socialist “Big Brother” Database Bill Infringes on Our Privacy

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The Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity today dubbed H5541 as its Bad Bill of the Week. The Rhode Island Department of Health wants to track sensitive information about you and your family – without your consent. In a state where government already has far too much control over our daily lives, big-brother should not be allowed to systematically track such information about our private lives.

Aimee Gardiner, founder of Rhode Islanders Against Mandated HPV Vaccines and a longtime advocate for medical informed consent, writes in her blog post about the many ways the proposed legislation (H5541) would infringe on our privacy. With the State of Rhode Island already collecting highly personal information about children and their families, the legislation would expand the government’s database to automatically include all adults … under the guise of tracking immunizations … without your knowledge or consent.

“Such an aggressive intrusion by government into our lives should not come as a surprise,” said the Center’s CEO, Mike Stenhouse. “Part of  the progressive-socialist agenda is for government to gather as much information as it can about its subjects, so it can someday decide who the winners and losers of its policy mandates should be.”

Further, a question raised by Gardiner asks whether or not this database-tracking is “dollar driven”, with the the Department of Health and/or doctors receiving a kick-back for every vaccination administered from big pharma vaccine manufacturers.

All in all, whether it’s a matter of government control or money, this legislation would violate our privacy without our permission! The medical community prides itself on the ethic of delivering services with “informed” patient-consent. This legislation would also violate that ethic.

If you do not want our state to take yet another step down the #RhodeToSerfdom, you are encouraged to send a note of opposition to your lawmaker, which can quickly and easily be done here: http://www.gaspeeproject.com/contact.

Suffering from retail store closings and low job numbers, Rhode Island could get a boost from an 'already-pulled' new trigger to reduce to 6.5% sales tax.

Legislation Pulls the Trigger on Sales Tax Cut to 6.5%

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Bill Re-Defines Trigger to Statutorily Cut the State Sales Tax Already Pulled??

Providence, RI — Suffering from a slate of retail store closings and far fewer in-state jobs than the government once estimated, Rhode Island could get an economic boost from legislation that creates an ‘already-pulled’ new trigger to reduce the state sales tax. The bill was submitted by freshman Representative George Nardone (R, Coventry) one week after the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity issued a policy brief calling for the state to comply with The Half-Percent Promise, its own statutory requirement to lower the state sales tax to 6.5% from its current level of 7.0%. 

To create the new trigger, the legislation (H5854) simply adds three words to existing state law (General Law 44-18-18) that mandates a cu to the sales tax rate, to read “upon passage of any federal law or court decision that authorizes states to require remote sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes …”

“The newly defined trigger in this bill has clearly been met via a 2018 US Supreme Court decision,” said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “However, this legislation should not even be necessary, as both the Governor and the Speaker were already given the authority in by the General Assembly 2014 to fulfill the government’s promise to the people. They can comply with state law simply by inserting the reduced sales tax rate into one of their budget lines.”

To create the new trigger, the legislation (H5854) simply adds three words to existing state law (General Law 44-18-18) that mandates a cu to the sales tax rate, to read “upon passage of any federal law or court decision that authorizes states to require remote sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes …”

“The newly defined trigger in this bill has clearly been met via a 2018 US Supreme Court decision,” said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “However, this legislation should not even be necessary, as both the Governor and the Speaker were already given the authority in by the General Assembly 2014 to fulfill the government’s promise to the people. They can comply with state law simply by inserting the reduced sales tax rate into one of their budget lines.”

The rationale for this law was to relieve Rhode Islanders of the additional burden of imposing a sales tax on a broader range of purchased goods, by easing the tax rate. The Center, in its 6.5% Sales Tax policy brief argued, while no actual federal law had been passed, that the original trigger threshold had effectively been met by the continued expansion of the sales tax, including remote sellers.

Doomed to lose a prized US Congressional seat because of its relative population loss,the Center’s larger “Freedom Agenda“, designed to attract more families and business to the Ocean State, stands in direct contrast to the regressive policies put forth by progressive-Democrats earlier this month. The Center’s agenda calls for specific tax and regulatory cuts, more healthcare choices, and protection of constitutional rights. A policy brief on raising the state Estate Tax exemption is expected soon.

In its Zero.Zero report many years ago, the Center’s extensive research and economic modeling calling for a full repeal, or reduction to 3.0%, of the state sales tax, as the most effective way to grow jobs, gained significant legislative interest.

Required Sales Tax Cut

Legally Required Sales Tax Cut Heads Center’s Legislative Agenda, as Counter to Progressives’ ‘Economic Justice Platform’

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 11, 2019

THE HALF-PERCENT PROMISE Center Calls for Statutorily-Required Sales Tax CutFull Agenda in Stark Contrast to “Women’s Economic Justice Platform”

Providence, RI — With Rhode Island doomed to lose a prized US Congressional seat because of its relative population loss, and in direct contrast to the regressive policy plan recently put forth by progressive Democrats, which would only force more people out of state, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity today published its full “Freedom Agenda” for 2019, headed by a call for the state to comply with The Half-Percent Promise, its own statutory requirement to lower the state sales tax. 

Existing state law (General Law 44-18-18) specifies a “trigger” for a sales tax rate reduction to 6.5% (from its current level of 7.0%) if certain internet sales tax collection criteria are met. The rationale for this law was to relieve Rhode Islanders of the additional burden of imposing a sales tax on a broader range of purchased goods, by easing the tax: The Center, in its 6.5% Sales Tax policy brief cites the full statutory language and argues, for all intents and purposes, that this trigger threshold has been met.

“The State of Rhode Island passed a law in 2011 promising the people of Rhode Island, that if it started collecting Internet sales taxes, it would offset this broadened tax-base by lowering the tax-rate,” said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “With major retailers suffering across our state, it’s time for government to fulfill its half-percent promise and provide some much needed relief to the hard-working taxpayers and businesses in our state.”

The Center’s larger “Freedom Agenda“, designed to attract more families and business to the Ocean State, stands in direct contrast to the regressive policies put forth by progressive-Democrats last week. The Center’s agenda calls for specific tax and regulatory cuts, more healthcare choices, and protection of constitutional rights. A policy brief on raising the state Estate Tax exemption is expected soon.

Conversely, the “Women’s Economic Justice Platform” is headed by legislation that would increase the likelihood that an employee might sue his/her employer on some  vague basis of wage inequality. Other progressive legislative items would place even more onerous mandates on businesses, increase taxes, limit healthcare options, and severely infringe on individual liberties. 

In its Zero.Zero report many years ago, the Center’s extensive research and economic modeling calling for a full repeal, or reduction to 3.0%, of the state sales tax, as the most effective way to grow jobs, gained significant legislative interest.