In the graph above, the large declines in Rhode Island's unemployment rate that began around July of 1998 were accompanied by a sharp rise in the out-of-state job gap -- the number of resident Rhode Islanders with jobs far exceeded the number of jobs created in Rhode Island. Thus, recent dramatic improvements in Rhode Island's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate have occurred largely as the result of Rhode Islanders securing employment in Connecticut and Massachusetts. For a newspaper article on this that I published back in March of 1997, click here.