Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

BACKGROUND

The Current Conditions Index (CCI) is a monthly indicator that details the present state of the Rhode Island economy by following the behavior of twelve key economic indicators pertaining to housing, retail sales, fiscal pressures, the employment situation, and labor supply:

Government Employment
Employment Services Jobs*
Retail Sales
University of Michigan US Consumer Sentiment Index**
Single-Unit Housing Permits
Private Service-Producing Employment***
Manufacturing Man-hours****
Average Hourly Manufacturing Wage
Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment Rate
Resident Labor Force
New Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance
Unemployment Insurance Regular Benefit Exhaustions

The CCI ranges from 0, when no indicators improve compared to year-earlier levels, to 100, when all twelve show improvement. Values above 50, the "neutral" value, indicate that the Rhode Island economy is expanding, while values below 50 are indicative of contraction. Prior to "The Great Recession" that began in June of 2007, the CCI had never attained a value of 0, indicating that no indicators improved relative to year-earlier values. This changed in 2008, when the CCI fell to 0 on three occasions, and in 2009, when another value of 0 was recorded. Prior to this, the low for the CCI had been 8, which occurred for only a single month on several occasions. For almost all of 2008, the CCI recorded values of 8. The CCI attained its maximum value of 100 on several occasions, for almost all of 1984 and once in 1986. Note that these values occurred exclusively when Rhode Island was still a manufacturing-based economy.

* Up until February 2006, the CCI used Help Wanted Advertising for Providence, RI as one of its indicators (and toward the end of its use an econometric adjustment was required). This indicator replaces Help Wanted Advertising.
** Prior to the October 2001 report, the CCI used Existing Home Sales in Rhode Island. This indicator replaces Existing Home Sales.
*** Prior to the January 2003 report, Miscellaneous Service Employment, a major category of the SIC codes, was used. Now that NAICS replaces the SIC codes, the current indicator was chosen to replace Miscellaneous Service Employment.
****Beginning with the November 2005 report, Manufacturing Man-hours will be referred to as Total Manufacturing Hours.

THE CCI THIS MONTH
MONTHLY HIGHLIGHTS:

DECEMBER 2013: 75

As the fourth quarter and 2013 came to an end, Rhode Island’s economic performance continued as it had for a while - we are moving forward, albeit at a not very encouraging speed. The news overall continued to be mixed: the good news was that the Current Conditions Index for December rose slightly to 75 from its November value of 67. And, within December’s performance, there were some positive results, mainly that almost all of the CCI’s leading economic indicators improved. That bodes well as we move into 2014. The bad news pertains to the continuation of a disturbing pattern: for a fifth consecutive month, and the sixth time in seven months, the CCI failed to exceed its year-earlier value. Hopefully, since the CCI values in early 2013 were not as strong as they had been in late 2012, we will soon find ourselves exceeding year-earlier values again in the first part of 2014. That is a very real possibility if the US economy continues to strengthen. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed. Once we begin to exceed prior-year values this will be the signal that the recovery is once again becoming more broadly based and that our momentum is accelerating. As I noted last month, the ultimate test of how robust Rhode Island’s recovery proves to be will be defined by our ability to accelerate from current and past rates of growth. We can only hope that our state’s continuing failure to meaningfully redefine itself for the information age (other than renaming the EDC) won’t pose too many obstacles.

For December, four of the CCI’s five leading indicators improved. The other, Single-Unit Permits, barely failed to improve, declining 1.4 percent from a year ago. While this was only its third non-improvement in over a year, this month’s result may well be more of a reflection of December’s weather than of any underlying economic weakness in our state’s housing sector.

US Consumer Sentiment rose sharply (+12.9%) in December following three consecutive months of declines. It has remained in an uptrend that we can expect to continue as long as the stock market continues to improve. Employment Service Jobs, which includes temporary employment, a prerequisite to overall employment growth, rose by 2.0 percent in December following a decline last month. While it remains in an uptrend, it appears quite likely that its values are levelling off around 9,000, assuming that rebenchmarking next month doesn’t change this pattern. Should layoffs begin to rise, this will pose a number of problems to our economic momentum as we move into 2014.

Government Employment	-0.3
US Consumer Sentiment	12.9	Y
Single-Unit Permits	-1.4
Retail Sales	2.1	Y
Employment Services Jobs	2.0	Y
Priv. Serv-Prod Employment	0.8	Y
Total Manufacturing Hours	3.5	Y
Manufacturing Wage	4.3	Y
Labor Force	-2.3
Benefit Exhaustions	-18.2	Y
New Claims	-21.8	Y
Unemployment Rate (change)	-0.8	Y
Y = Improved Value

All of the remaining leading indicators improved in December. New Claims for Unemployment Insurance, the timeliest measure of layoffs, improved significantly in December, falling by 21.8 percent, its second consecutive double-digit decline. While this indicator is not yet in a well-defined downtrend, the most recent four months indicate that this may be changing. The final leading indicator, Total Manufacturing Hours, which measures strength in our manufacturing sector, rose by a very healthy 3.5 percent in December, driven mainly by a large increase in the length of the workweek. This indicator has now improved for eleven of the last thirteen months. Combined with the recent behavior of Single-Unit Permits, it is clear that Rhode Island’s goods-producing sector is far from dead.

Retail Sales have remained strong on a year-over-year basis, in spite of a slowing in their rate of growth of late. On a monthly basis, however, Retail Sales have generally been declining since September. Private Service-Producing Employment growth, which had recently moved above a one percent rate of growth, slipped below that rate in December, rising by only 0.8 percent. When the rebenchmarked data are released next month, we will likely see notable revisions in this indicator. Our state’s Labor Force declined yet again (for the ninth consecutive time). Yet in spite of this, Rhode Island managed to move into sole possession of the #1 slot, not for a noteworthy positive area, but for our Unemployment Rate. Rhode Island’s jobless rate rose slightly over the month while other states saw declining rates. Finally, Government Employment edged down again (by 0.3%).

THE BOTTOM LINE

The fourth quarter ended on a far less positive note than what we experienced one year ago. At present, Rhode Island’s economy has moved beyond an inflection point in terms of its rate of growth, as our state’s recovery has now become somewhat less broadly based. Evidence of this is provided by the fact that the CCI has now failed to exceed its year-earlier value for five consecutive months, hardly a very happy way to end the year! In spite of this, pockets of positive momentum exist, perhaps more than one might think, but not as much as we should have been experiencing had our elected officials done the hard work of meaningfully reinventing our state’s economy.

Monthly CCI Values (red = recession)
(Note: These are revised values. Original reports sometimes specify different CCI values, based on originally released data.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1983	42	58	58	67	75	83	83	75	83	83	83	92
1984	100	92	100	100	100	100	100	92	100	92	92	83
1985	67	75	75	75	67	75	67	50	50	58	83	67
1986	75	83	100	92	92	83	92	92	92	92	92	67
1987	67	67	58	58	67	75	75	75	75	67	75	75
1988	83	83	75	67	67	67	58	50	67	58	50	58
1989	67	50	50	33	58	33	25	25	25	33	33	33
1990	25	25	25	25	17	17	17	17	33	17	25	25
1991	25	17	17	8	25	17	25	25	25	33	17	17
1992	42	42	58	75	75	83	75	67	67	83	83	92
1993	75	83	67	67	83	67	75	75	75	58	42	58
1994	58	67	67	58	58	75	67	67	67	67	83	75
1995	58	58	58	67	50	42	42	42	58	33	67	42
1996	50	42	75	75	67	75	75	67	75	92	83	92
1997	100	92	83	75	67	75	75	75	83	75	92	83
1998	83	75	75	75	75	75	75	67	58	75	75	50
1999	83	75	75	83	67	83	75	75	92	75	83	58
2000	83	83	83	67	42	50	58	50	58	67	67	67
2001	42	33	25	17	33	50	25	33	33	42	33	42
2002	58	75	67	58	42	33	50	50	58	67	67	50
2003	50	50	50	58	58	58	83	67	83	75	92	67
2004	67	67	58	67	58	58	67	67	67	58	50	67
2005	50	67	50	50	42	75	58	67	42	58	58	67
2006	58	58	67	58	33	50	33	58	75	83	58	67
2007	50	50	33	33	58	50	33	33	17	17	8	25
2008	8	8	8	17	8	0	8	0	8	0	8	8
2009	17	8	0	8	17	33	17	42	33	42	50	33
2010	42	58	67	67	75	75	83	83	67	67	75	83
2011	50	67	67	58	50	58	58	42	50	50	58	50
2012	58	50	58/75	50/75	58/67	67/75	50/58	67/75	50/58	75/83	75/83	92
2013	75	67	83	67	83	75	75	67	7 5	75	67	75

You can download monthly reports in PDF format starting
with January 1999 by clicking on the monthly index value.

Historical Annual CCI Values

1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
42	54	33	74	96	67	88	69	65	39
1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
22	21	70	69	67	51	72	81	72	77
2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
65	39	56	66	63	57	54	40	7	24
2010	2011	2012
70	55	74

Historical CCI Values

Monthly CCI Values (red = recession) (Note: These are revised values. Original reports sometimes specify different CCI values, based on originally released data.

Historical Annual CCI Values

Monthly CCI Values (red = recession)
(Note: These are revised values. Original reports sometimes specify different CCI values, based on originally released data.