41. Alabama > Debt per capita: $1,804 (7th lowest) > Credit Rating (S&P/Moody’s): AA/Aa1 > 2013 unemployment rate: 6.5% (18th lowest) > Median household income: $42,849 (4th lowest) > Poverty rate: 18.7% (7th highest) Like many other states at the bottom of the list, Alabama residents are quite poor. More than 10% of households in […]
47. Rhode Island > Debt per capita: $8,761 (3rd highest) > Credit Rating (S&P/Moody’s): AA/Aa2 > 2013 unemployment rate: 9.5% (2nd highest) > Median household income: $55,902 (18th highest) > Poverty rate: 14.3% (24th lowest)
Rhode Island is one of only two states that declined in population in recent years. The total state population dropped by more than 1,000 between April 2010 and July 2013. Driving this change was the fact that more people left than relocated to Rhode Island. A poor job market may account for part of the exodus — 9.5% of the state’s workforce was unemployed as of last year, the second highest rate nationwide. A typical home in the area was worth $232,300 in 2013, one of the highest median values in the nation. However, this was after a 13% decrease from 2009, nearly the worst drop in property values nationwide. Rhode Island’s state debt level totalled 116% of revenue in fiscal 2012, one of only a few states where debt levels exceeded a year of revenue.
Rhode Island is ranked near the bottom of best run states in the nation. This is in spite of its location on the ocean between the population centers of Boston and New York.
We lay the blame for this directly on our legislature, which is one of the most powerful in the nation. We're hopeful that Gina Raimundo can make a difference, but I worry that we need to change the way our state is run and the characters who have been running it for years. We need Legislators who look out for the best interests of the state as a whole, not only for themselves and their constituencies. We need to come together for change. The proof of the need to change what we are doing is in our state management ranking!
