Dem Gov Gina Raimondo Again Caught Using Misleading Job Figures

In less than 24 hours, failed Democrat governor Gina Raimondo has been caught not once, but twice trying to fudge job numbers. In an apparent attempt to puff up her image ahead of the 2018 election (or 2020 as recent news articles suggest), Gina Raimondo tried to take credit for creating 15,000 jobs since she took office by including ones created from October to December of 2014, a full three months before she had been sworn in. When pressed by reporters after she was fact-checked on the stat, a Raimondo spokesman ignored the question entirely and tried to change the subject.

The Providence Journal reports:

“On Tuesday night, the state Republican Party issued a statement headlined: ‘Misleading Voters, Dem Gov Gina Raimondo Fudges Rhode Island Job Numbers.’

‘In her attempts to cover up her failed economic policies, Democrat [Raimondo] and her supporters are misleading voters by inflating Rhode Island job numbers. In documents circulated by Rhode Island Democrats that were reported on by numerous media outlets, Raimondo and her allies claim more than 15,000 jobs have been created on her watch, but in actuality, nearly a third of those jobs were created before she was sworn into office in January 2015.’

Raimondo spokesman Mike Raia tweeted a response that side-stepped the numbers question by drawing attention to a different measure of the state’s economic health…”

Just yesterday, the Providence Journal also reported that Raimondo tried to claim the unemployment rate was far worse than it actually was when she took office, but was quickly fact-checked by her predecessor, Lincoln Chafee:

“…former Governor Lincoln D. Chafee has called out his successor Gina Raimondo for claiming Rhode Island’s unemployment rate was worse than it was when she took office on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015.

…Highest unemployment rate? That was true for a long time.

But it was not true at the point Raimondo took the oath of office, according to the state’s Department of Labor & Training…”

Fudging employment data is becoming a pattern for Raimondo, who appears to be making a habit out of misleading on the economy, falsely stating last week that Rhode Island was “basically at full employment” despite the labor force remaining over 22,000 behind its 2006 peak. This raises a question for the governor, if her performance on the economy has been as strong as she and her staff say it is, why does she need to push misleading numbers?