R.I. Sees Improvement in State Competitiveness Rankings
January 16, 2008 | Print this page | Share This | Email this page
Moving up four places since 2006, Rhode Island was one of the fastest moving states in the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University's "State Competitiveness Report 2007." This year Rhode Island ranked 21st overall, bolstered by strong showings in the technology, security and human resources categories. Rhode Island moved up four places in the ranking since 2006 and 10 places since 2005.
Rhode Island ranked seventh in the technology subindex, which measured state's R&D capacity, inhabitants with science and engineering degrees, the number of patents per 1000,000 residents and National Institutes of Health support to institutions per capita. According to the index, Rhode Island placed third in the amount of science and engineering degrees awarded per 100,000 inhabitants and placed fifth in NIH support.
Rhode Island's improvement in ranking reinforces that leadership must aggressively continue with efforts to help Rhode Island businesses transition from an old industrial economy to a new knowledge-driven innovation economy and continue to promote new company creation in innovation-economy industries.
The report also ranked Rhode Island's safety and crime rate lowest in the nation, citing low crime and murder indexes. Rhode Island also fared well in the human resources subindex, placing 15th overall in the category. According to the human resources subindex, the number of people without health insurance in the state is the lowest in the nation.
Rhode Island also ranked well for the percent of the population enrolled in degree-granting institutions (fifth), the percent of adults who are in the labor force (17th), and the rate of nonfederal physicians per 100,000 inhabitants (sixth).
Rhode Island has seen $7 billion in new investment since 2005, including new or planned buildings, new industrial developments, expansion of existing companies, and private investment in infrastructure. The economy has created many new jobs – more than 20,000 from 2002 to 2006, and 5,700 just in 2006 alone, which was the fastest job growth rate in New England. These factors were contributors to improvements in Rhode Island's ranking.
