Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Mountain_Bill5743 t1_j4y279l wrote

Reply to comment by hjude_design in Can someone explain what's going on with gas pricing? by hjude_design

Nah I understand and I am fortunate on income. I love this state, but if I'm being honest even many of us with good incomes would tell you that things are starting to spiral out of control here for what you get. So it's cheaper, but disproportionately so for the scale, economy, and social life. Like, the same old city, none of the value that used to be a selling point.

Like, I think we lost our way sometime when gainfully employed people started turning off their heat and calling this living.

11

Custard1753 t1_j4yqlqp wrote

The economy and social life are good. That’s why people are moving here

5

Mountain_Bill5743 t1_j4z3p46 wrote

Low pay, few companies, big issue with brain drain after graduation (being a young professional was crazy isolating). We even topped the lists of worst cities to date (citing, notably, the poor job prospects for college educated men). Is some of this changing post covid? I assume very slowly.

I'm not sure if you've been here for a while, but going from 1200 2 bedrooms pre-covid to $2500 2 bedrooms with zero quality of life improvements is embarrassing to admit to friends in other states-- it's Providence, not Berlin.

10

Proof-Variation7005 t1_j50d7wx wrote

Without knowing anything about your field or anything, I will say that the economy is absolutely doing well. If it weren't the housing market demand wouldn't be as bad as it is.

3

degggendorf t1_j515hhi wrote

> I will say that the economy is absolutely doing well. If it weren't the housing market demand wouldn't be as bad as it is.

Well, not necessarily. As we've seen, people who are employed in Boston or NYC on paper are coming here to live as remote work becomes more feasible. I would be logically possible for RI to be a completely residential state, with no economy of our own outside of the service industry.

However, that's not what indicators would, well, indicate. to wit:

> The department said six employment sectors – construction, finance and insurance, information, manufacturing, professional and technical services, and wholesale trade – reported more jobs in December than they had in the month prior to the pandemic shutdown.

The full article speaks more of the good and bad signs of our economy. The bottom line is that RI economy is doing well, but its rate of improvement is slowing.

https://pbn.com/r-i-unemployment-rate-dips-to-3-5-in-december/

3

Proof-Variation7005 t1_j5190s6 wrote

Oh, remote work is definitely a factor since there's definitely people priced out of other markets. But, there's plenty of other indicators that show an overall health.

That certainly doesn't mean everyone is doing great or anything close to it, but compared to a decade ago or even longer, it's basically a renaissance period for the city/state economically after having a slower than normal recovery from 2008.

3

Mountain_Bill5743 t1_j527r2k wrote

Thanks, this was more what I was hoping to find and you described the remote economy well. The state still seems to be stuck with salary bands from a decade ago and job openings are only half the story if every employer is lowballing salaries. I would be interested in seeing more salary data overlays, but that can get hard to find.

1