Saturday Stats

Numeric news from Policy Matters

$19.4M: Annual cost of Ohio’s tax break for people with timeshares on private jets. That’s one of the more absurd (but less expensive) tax breaks Aditi Srivastava recommends reevaluating in her recent op-ed for Cleveland.com. A couple others — the Commercial Activity Tax and an exemption for data center companies — cost the state more than $1.75B this fiscal year. The state should be regularly reviewing these tax breaks and scrapping any that don’t result in broadly shared benefits for Ohioans. In fact, they had a committee set up to do just that, starting in 2016, but legislators dragged their feet and eventually scrapped it. We’re still keeping tabs on them, though.

0: Number of Ohio’s 88 counties where a single person working full-time can afford basic living expenses on the state’s $11 minimum wage, as noted in our recent report. To get by for a year in Ohio’s most modestly priced county (Scioto), a worker paid minimum wage would have to work full time all year — and then another eight months. In Delaware County, where the cost of living for a single adult is highest, that worker would have to work full time for nearly two and a half years to cover just one year of expenses. Increasing Ohio’s minimum wage to $15 wouldn’t solve the affordability crisis, but it would help many of the Ohioans who need it most.  

$6,424: Average tax cut that would be given to Ohio’s highest-income 1% of households by H.B. 617, which would eliminate taxes on capital gains in Ohio. The lowest-income 20% would see no benefits at all. That top 1% (with an average annual income of $1.8M) would capture 61% of the tax cut. Just 3% of the cut would be split among the 60% of us with average annual income less than $84,500. Considering the $600M+ in revenue the state would forgo every year if it passes, H.B. 617 should be added to the compost bin.

5,600: Number of jobs lost in Ohio between December 2024 and December 2025, making last year the first since COVID-19 that Ohio experienced a year-to-year decline in employment. Our recent JobWatch explores new federal benchmarks that show initial estimates were off by about 45,000 jobs, enough to turn what was first reported as a year of job gains into one of overall loss. This kind of revision isn’t uncommon; it’s a good reminder that monthly jobs numbers are most useful when reported consistently and studied over the long term.  

50: Number of toppings available for the hot dogs (vegan or beef) at Happy Dog in Cleveland, where Policy Matters researcher Molly Bryden will be a panelist at a forum hosted by the City Club this Tuesday, April 21. She’ll be discussing the environmental impacts and energy demands of data centers in Ohio. Doors open at 7:00. Forum starts at 7:30. Tickets are free and registration helps ensure the kitchen has enough tater tots to go around! (Can’t make it? The City Club will livestream it on the event page. You can sign up to receive a reminder via email.)

Action items

Cuyahoga County’s Reentry Awareness Month 2026 continues! Get the full calendar of events!

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