RI's Economy Shows "Steady, Slow Growth" in Third Quarter, Says RIPEC-Bryant Report
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RI's Economy Shows "Steady, Slow Growth" in Third Quarter, Says RIPEC-Bryant Report
According to the Center for Global and Regional Economic Studies at Bryant University and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council’s (RIPEC) Current Economic Indicator (CEI) for quarter 3, the RI GDP is projected to have expanded 1.8 percent, compared to 1.5 percent in the second quarter, 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2019, and 5.9 percent in the 4th quarter of 2018.
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RI’s 3rd Quarter Economy
According to the report, eight of the eleven internal factors that comprise the RI CEI positively affected the economy in Q3 2019, including a 7.3 percent increase in general sales and gross receipt taxes, suggesting that consumer spending has been key to economic growth in the Ocean State.
Of the remaining three factors, declining employment in manufacturing and construction had a negative impact, while preliminary estimates indicate that total real wages and salary disbursements stayed constant in Q3 2019.
Nonfarm employment in Rhode Island is projected to have grown by 8,400 jobs between January and September 2019, and initial unemployment claims are projected to have decreased by 26.2 percent in Q3 2019.
The unemployment rate has been around 3.6 percent since May 2019, down from 4.0 percent in January.
About CEI
The quarterly CEI, developed by economists at The Center for Global and Regional Economic Studies at Bryant University, combines several key gauges of economic activity in a single statistic that measures the overall current economic conditions in Rhode Island.
It is calibrated to grow at the rate of the Real Gross State Product and, therefore, can be interpreted as the underlying growth rate of the state economy.
The CEI is calculated using the most current available data for the state.