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:

FEBRUARY 2014: 58

The rugged winter weather that continued into February clearly took its toll on Rhode Island’s overall economic performance, although there were still a number of areas where Rhode Island did well. The most obvious tragedy of the weather was new home construction, which was almost nonexistent in February. Yet at the same time, both Retail Sales and US Consumer Sentiment turned in very strong performances. The Current Conditions Index for February was 58, a decline from its (downwardly revised) value in January of 67, and below the February 2013 value, which was also 67. However, I have scored the CCI for February with an asterisk — guilty with an explanation: were it not for the recorded plunge in Single-Unit Permits (to 26 units for the entire state), the value of the CCI would likely have been 67, matching its values for last month and one year ago.

Yet even if that change had occurred, the CCI still would have failed to improve relative to its year-earlier value for a seventh consecutive month and eighth time in the last nine months. Clearly, these “misses” are not all, nor mostly, attributable to the weather over the past several months, so some slowing of our state’s overall cyclical momentum is continuing. The upside to this, if there is one, is that payroll employment has been rising substantially more than we were led to believe with the data prior to the most recent rebenchmarking, and we just received word that December’s employment number will be revised even higher. I guess this is Rhode Island’s version of life in the fast lane!

For February, two of the CCI’s five leading indicators improved, while two failed to improve, and the fifth was highly weather distorted. Looking first at those that failed to improve, Employment Service Jobs, which includes temporary employment and is a prerequisite to employment growth, fell by 1.3 percent in February, its third consecutive decline. However, based on the recent contradictory rebenchmarking changes to this indicator, the only thing I feel confident in concluding is that this indicator either increased, decreased, or remained unchanged in February. The other leading indicator that failed to improve, New Claims for Unemployment Insurance, is the timeliest measure of layoffs. For February, it rose by 11.5 percent compared to a year ago, its second failure to improve since last August. The downtrend in this indictor since July of 2013 may well have ended, which would be particularly bad news for our state. Finally, Single-Unit Permits, which was highly distorted by the weather, fell by 57.1 percent relative to a year ago. In spite of this, Rhode Island is continuing to move beyond its cyclical trough in new home construction.

CCI Indicators - % Change

Government Employment

0.0

US Consumer Sentiment

5.2

Single-Unit Permits

-57.1

Retail Sales

5.3

Employment Services Jobs

-1.3

Priv. Serv-Prod Employment

1.8

Total Manufacturing Hours

3.0

Manufacturing Wage

0.1

Labor Force

-1.2

Benefit Exhaustions

-23.7

New Claims

11.5

Unemployment Rate (change)

-0.5

Y = Improved Value

US Consumer Sentiment rose by 5.2 percent in February, its third increase following three consecutive months of declines. The final leading indicator, Total Manufacturing Hours, which measures strength in our manufacturing sector, resumed strong growth in February (+3.0%), boosted by increases in both the workweek and employment.

Retail Sales turned in a very strong performance in February, rising by 5.3 percent relative to a year ago. Keep in mind this indicator excludes clothing sales, which likely grew substantially in light of February’s very cold weather. Private Service-Producing Employment, which was revised higher in the recent rebenchmarking, is displaying fairly strong growth. For February, it rose by 1.8 percent relative to last February. The performance of our state’s Labor Force continued as it has for a while now - rates of decline continue to exceed one percent. February was its tenth consecutive decrease. Even with these declines, Rhode Island once again claimed the #1 jobless slot in February, as our Unemployment Rate was 9%. Let me confess that I am skeptical of these revised unemployment numbers in light of the improving performance of payroll employment. More on this next month. Finally, Government Employment was unchanged in February at just under 60,000.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The present recovery continues to be less broadly based than it was a year ago, based on the fact that the CCI has now failed to exceed its year-earlier value for seven consecutive months. There are areas of strength, however, and payroll employment is growing faster than we had thought (although we remain 4.6% below our prior peak). A number of persons say we need to make drastic changes now, then propose ill-conceived solutions presupposing sales tax changes as “the solution.” Rhode Island needs intelligent and well thought out investment-oriented solutions that are based on thorough due diligence. We need to stop “flying blind,” that’s what got us here!

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
2014	75	58

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	2013
70	55	74	76

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.

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.