Wild Side Episode #251 2/16/16 - The weather is like the U.S. political scene and the world: frightful, cold, and unforgiving. But here at WBOB, you can find warmth and comfort with those who fight the good fight and wish to enlighten minds like the WildSide's Professor David Clyde.
Leonard Lardaro
URI Professor of Economics It wasn’t too hard to see what December would bring for Rhode Island’s economy: like the nation, Rhode Island slowed a bit further, as weakness in our goods-producing sector continued, becoming a bit worse than was the case in November. Ironically, almost everyone here overlooked this entirely and instead chose to celebrate the decline in our state’s jobless rate to 5.1 percent, presuming as they so often do that the Unemployment Rate by itself is a sufficient basis with which to characterize our state’s economic performance. Obviously, that presumption is false for two reasons. First, while our jobless rate was at its lowest value in many years, recent rates are not comparable to rates in earlier years since at present, participation rates are much lower than they were back then. Perhaps more importantly, to accurately assess economic performance, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of a broadly based set of indicators, which is precisely what the Current Conditions Index does. Thursday Rep. Aaron Regunberg will submit the “Healthy and Safe Families and Workplaces Act” to guarantee all Rhode Island workers the ability to earn paid sick time.
“Far too many workers in our state do not have access to earned sick leave. That means that every day, Rhode Islanders are forced to make heartbreaking choices between caring for their health or the health of their children and paying the bills,” said Representative Regunberg (D-Dist. 4, Providence). “Earned sick time laws have been tested and are working well across the country, including in Connecticut and Massachusetts. It’s time for us to join our neighboring states, because Rhode Island families and communities deserve better than to have to sacrifice their jobs, their health, and their economic security when they get sick.”
State Sen. Joshua Miller (D-Cranston) and State Rep. Scott Slater (D-Providence) will introduce legislation Thursday that would end marijuana prohibition in Rhode Island and replace it with a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol.
The bill sponsors will discuss the proposal at a news conference at 3:30 p.m. ET in Room 101 of the Rhode Island State House. They will be joined by the leaders of Regulate Rhode Island: co-chair Professor Andrew Horwitz, a criminal defense lawyer, and director Jared Moffat. While most of New England is slowly digging themselves out of the snow that was dumped on them last Monday, Professor Clyde was enlightening minds in a cold, cruel world. In his latest show, special guest Farrah Prudence, Editor-in-Chief for VoxPopuliNews.net, joined Clyde to discuss the recent uprising in radical Islamic extremist.
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