RI “Cheat Sheet” — Hot Spots for Grads, Teachers' Apartment Affordability, RI Slow Growth

RI “Cheat Sheet” — Hot Spots for Grads, Teachers' Apartment Affordability, RI Slow Growth

Welcome to this week’s edition of the RI Cheat Sheet.

The weekly feature focuses on important and interesting numbers, data, and high-value factoids that impact Rhode Island and the economy.

1) Looking for the Hot Spots for College Grads?

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The Wall Street Journal says these are the three cities that are emerging as the next hot spots for college grads.

“So where can a new graduate find a solid footing on the career ladder, a lively entertainment scene and enough of a paycheck to enjoy it?

To determine the next potential hot spots for entry-level professionals, The Wall Street Journal pored over dozens of metrics, including housing costs, the number of highly rated bars and restaurants, and growth in tech employment—a tell-tale indicator of a dynamic job market," wrote the WSJ.

Here are three “sleeper” cities that stand apart:

Baltimore

Pittsburgh

Salt Lake City

Salt Lake sounds especially seductive, “With big employers such as Adobe Systems, Overstock.com and Symantec, the area already has a high share of tech jobs per capita, and local tech-job postings on the jobsite Indeed.com climbed 12% last year. Yet the Utah capital is relatively affordable—for now. A recent Cushman & Wakefield report found residents spend about 32% of their income on housing, compared with 40% in Denver and 78% in San Francisco. At least 10 ski resorts are within an hour’s drive, including Park City and Robert Redford’s Sundance, and the city sports a thriving microbrew scene."

 

2) RI's Slow Growth

In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, "Connecticut’s Tax Roulette: Democrats in Hartford try to drive more hedge funds out of state," -- the WSJ points out that Connecticut is still doing better than RI in GDP growth. 

"Population flight is taking a toll on [Connecticut's] economy and budget. Last week the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that Connecticut’s GDP grew a paltry 1% in 2018, 44th in the country and the slowest in the Northeast after Rhode Island. The U.S. economy grew about 3%," wrote the Wall Street Journal editorial.

 

3) Teachers Can’t Afford Apartments in U.S. -- Better in Providence-Metro

The national numbers for the median income across primary and secondary school teachers with bachelor’s degrees is 27.4 percent less than that of non-teachers with bachelor’s degrees. For teachers with Master’s degrees earn 33.3 percent less than similarly educated non-teachers. These wage gaps are even more extreme for preschool and kindergarten teachers.

But, in the Providence-Warwick metro, the numbers are better. The median income for teachers in RI is on average is $70,000 versus the non-teacher with a bachelor's degree -- a difference of just 1.4%.

The cost burden ratio of affordability of an apartment in the Providence area is actually better as compared to non-teachers but not as large a gap as many cities. In Charlotte, the cost burden is 77 percent higher for teachers versus non-teachers with a bachelors degree. In the Providence metro area it is 6.3 percent lower for teachers.

"Teacher cost burden rates are highest in expensive coastal metros. Of the 25 largest metros, Miami has the highest cost burden rate for primary-earner teachers at 35 percent, followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Washington D.C," according to Apartment List.

 

4) Recession Worries in RI

See Len Lardaro's monthly Index on the RI economy. Lardaro said in an email, "I continue to remain unable to reject the possibility that Rhode Island has entered the earliest stages of a recession."