McKee's Job Creation Claims Under Fire as Challenger Points to Pandemic Recovery

Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee has been touting his administration's job creation statistics, claiming they've added 37,000 jobs since he took office. However, his Democratic primary challenger Helena Buonanno Foulkes disputes this number.

Foulkes argues that most of these jobs were created as the state recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a significant loss of jobs in the state.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Rhode Island's seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll (jobs count) stood at 514,200 as of June 2026, up 39,700 from when McKee took office in March 2021.

However, Foulkes notes that it took almost three years for the state to regain its pre-pandemic job levels, and even then, the recovery was slow. In fact, Rhode Island's current job count is only 0.06% higher than in January 2020, with a total of 7,200 more jobs.