Charlestown unemployment takes another big jump

Official Charlestown unemployment now just a whisker under 10%

By Will Collette

CCA Party's economic recovery policy

New December figures have been posted by the Department of Labor and Training (DLT) showing Charlestown’s official unemployment rate jumped by a remarkable 13.8% in just one month. The unemployment rate went from 8.7% in November to 9.9% at the end of the year. 

Overall unemployment in Rhode Island rose to 9.1%, making Rhode Island now the state with the worst unemployment. And with the latest increase Charlestown is now far worse than the state as a whole.

With 10% of Charlestown’s 4,554 workers now officially unemployed, it’s time to review Charlestown’s options for what it can do to meet the challenge of now having 450 officially unemployed. Let's not forget that perhaps two to three times more workers are “under-employed” (not working as many hours as they want) or are unemployed but no longer eligible for unemployment insurance.

I wrote about those options recently, mainly to anticipate the common refrain from our town leaders who hail from the Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party (CCA). The CCA Party position is that Charlestown is powerless to do anything about unemployment because it is caused by conditions outside of their control.

I have argued that the CCA Party position is simply not true. In general, nearly every problem Charlestown must face has its origins outside of Charlestown. We are, after all, a small community surrounded by a great big dynamic world. We have to make decisions all the time on what we will do here to handle problems with external causes, whether it's climate change or the economy.

While Charlestown cannot cure our state or national economic malaise, there are at least seven practical steps Charlestown could take on its own to help improve the local job market, provide relief to families struggling with the effects of the bad economy and help workers get new jobs.

These seven ideas are detailed here, but here is a brief summary:

• Tax relief. Reduce the tax load on Charlestown residents by, at minimum, not increasing taxes as the CCA-controlled town government has done for the past six years that they’ve controlled the budget. Reconsider past proposals to provide meaningful tax relief to middle-class Charlestown residents.
• Business incentives. Charlestown is famous for passing nit-picking ordinances that push local businesses either out of business or out of town with the resulting loss of work opportunities. If these ordinances are necessary for the public good, rather than make them unfunded mandates, give businesses a chance to recoup their costs of compliance through property tax credits.
• Buy local. Seek to use vendors and contractors who are locally based and…
• Hire local. Use vendors and contractors who hire local workers.
• Make sure new business regulations add value. Before enacting new ordinances that constrict business, the town should weigh (a) the cost of those regulations to business compared to (b) the costs and beneficial effects on the community.
• Open up job opportunities. Instead of resisting the need to come up with at least 200 units of affordable housing in Charlestown, actually try creative approaches to create that housing, and reap the benefit of new work opportunities for unemployed construction workers.
• Hook up with public transportation. We cannot ignore the hardship Charlestown’s total lack of access to public transportation creates for working people to get to work, to look for a new job, or to get to training or education programs to equip them to get a new job. If we can’t get public transportation into Charlestown, we need to use creative approaches to get Charlestown workers to public transportation.

Charlestown has the capacity to carry out each of these seven points, if it had the willpower and the leadership. And I’m sure there are lots of other ideas yet to surface. Ignoring the on-going, grinding and corrosive effects of unemployment in our community is really not an option.

Our CCA Party Town Councilors are quick to respond to concerns raised by shoreline property owners, many of whom are not town residents, acting on the belief that it is in the town’s interest to cater to them, given how much they pay in property taxes. However, the crisis so many Charlestown families face just trying to survive day by day to meet basic needs also threatens our tax base.

When people run out of money and can’t keep up with the mortgage and taxes, they often try to sell, putting their house on the market when it already is loaded with properties for sale. When the house doesn’t sell for weeks, they drop the price, just like everyone else who is on the market. This has caused a spiraling decline in home values that affects every other homeowner – and our tax base.

Charlestown’s official foreclosure data for 2013 was very encouraging. With only 6 recorded foreclosures, that was the lowest number since 2007. However, that figure does not reflect properties sold at deep discounts and losses to the seller or homes put up for tax auction. While I am thrilled that foreclosures dropped, that only is one aspect of the problem Charlestown homeowners face.

When the new revaluation figures for Charlestown properties come out soon, we may see an overall increase in Charlestown’s tax base. However, like the last revaluation, I wouldn’t expect the changes to at all evenly spread across town. 

As we await the actual figures, I've been trying to figure out what we're likely to see. I suspect that in Charlestown’s working class heartland North of One, valuations may either stay relatively flat or even decline. I suspect the overall increases we’ve seen on reflected in Zillow.com’s data over the past year are probably more concentrated on high-end properties South of One.

However the revaluation turns out, it will change the tax rates and, for many property owners, the bottom line on their tax bills. For families who have been struggling to pay the bills when one or more family members are unemployed or underemployed, they will be hoping to get a little relief, although the main way that would happen is if their property valuation takes a hit.

Six years of benign neglect of Charlestown’s working families is six years too long. When there are concrete and specific things our town government could do to help, it is inexcusable that they don’t.