Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI), May 2019
A Little Help From UHIP
Providence, RI – The May edition of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI) report brought Rhode Island back up to 47th place in the country, owing to the fact that UHIP has prevented accurate counts of SNAP (foodstamp) enrollment.
Employment, labor force, RI-based jobs, and state and local taxes were all negative factors, with only Medicaid enrollment showing as a positive.
“As the General Assembly does its annual budget ritual without providing taxpayers any relief or changing the way the state does business in the direction of prosperity, the JOI report is a reminder of the consequences ,” said the Center’s research director, Justin Katz. “We need more people working, not fewer, and we need the ratio of taxes to income to go down. Only when that happens will we finally begin to be competitive with other states .”
Not only is Rhode Island’s score on JOI significantly lower than the New England and U.S. averages, but the gap is growing.
Additional charts and details of each of JOI’s three sub-factors can be viewed here.
About the Center
The nonpartisan Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity is Rhode Island’s premiere pro-family, pro-growth research and advocacy organization. The nonprofit Center is funded entirely by private tax-deductible donations and never accepts public funding. The mission of the 501-C-3 organization is to return government to the people by opposing special-interest politics and advancing proven market-based solutions that can transform lives by restoring economic competitiveness, increasing educational opportunities, and protecting individual freedoms.