December 2010 Data

The December 2010 data, the existing data at least, are given in the table below. While the Rhode Island's economy has made substantial improvement since its recession, weakness remains. The potentially good news concerns upcoming data revisions (rebenchmarking). With the release of the January employment data (later this month), we will see the revised labor market data extending back to late 2009. If history turns out to be accurate, during the initial stages of recoveries, revisions are to higher values. That doesn't say how much higher, though. I expect some upward revision to the existing data, so things weren't quite as bad as we had been led to believe. But I don't expect truly dramatic changes. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed for that.

Once the rebenchmarked labor market data have been released, I will make one or more posts discussing the changes and their significance.