$600M: House Bill 1 — a short-sighted flat tax proposal — would mean $600 million a year in property tax increases for residential and agricultural property owners. $500M+: House Bill 1 — an ill-conceived flat tax proposal — would reduce the amount of state aid and property taxes received by
$0.00-$3.00: A top-priority bill in the Ohio House (HB1) would slash funding for children and all manner of local services, hand thousands of dollars a year to wealthy households and reduce income taxes by $0-3 a year for families with income below $50,000. (That’s not a typo: If you make
11,525: Gov. DeWine kicked off Ohio’s biennial budget season with his budget proposal, which would — among other things — expand access to child care and public pre-K to an additional 11,525 children statewide. That’s one of a few bright spots in the governor’s budget, which falls short in a
Why the state budget matters Ohio should use our shared resources to do the most good for the most people, across race and place, of every gender, age and ability. Every two years, our representatives in Columbus have an opportunity to create a state budget that does just that. State
In anticipation of Gov. Mike DeWine’s 2024-2025 state budget proposal next month, Policy Matters Ohio is releasing “Ohio Budget 101” to provide advocates, journalists and the general public with an overview of how the state generates revenue, where policymakers have chosen to spend it, and how the people of Ohio
Today, Policy Matters Ohio issued support for a coalition working to defeat Issue 1 — a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution which would double down on inhumane and ineffective wealth-based detention. Senior Researcher Piet van Lier released the following statement: “Most Ohioans believe that liberty and justice for all
Saturday Stats $4.9 billion: Annual amount directed to working people under our plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026. It was tough to choose just one impressive number from Researcher Michael Shields’ latest report. That’s because a $15 minimum wage would have such enormous benefits
If you’re superstitious, today’s date—Friday the 13th—might have you worried. But at Policy Matters, we know tough times aren’t the result of bad luck, but bad policy. Families struggle to afford childcare, communities lack the resources to combat the opioid crisis and our K-12 funding formula has been unconstitutional for
Ohio’s workers face big problems, from factory closures to wage theft. But those problems seem a little smaller when we face them together. That’s why Policy Matters joined with our friends at SEIU District 1199 to host Which Side Are You On?: the Cleveland Work and Wages Conference, last Friday
The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) helps working families make ends meet and reduces poverty—especially among children.[1] It is available only to people who work. Last year, almost 900,000 Ohioans claimed the federal credit, qualifying for $2.2 billion, an average credit of about $2,500 for each family.[2] The federal
Adding a refundable option will do more to fight poverty A proposed change to Ohio’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) would benefit 379,200 income tax filers who work in the state’s lowest-paying jobs. On average, their credits would increase by $248, according to a brief from Policy Matters Ohio. Ohio’s
Doing the Work: InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia
Simply by comparing our organizations’ names, a person could imagine major differences between the work of Policy Matters Ohio and that of the InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia (IRTF). And yet, we regularly find ourselves working alongside the IRTF’s passionate, compassionate co-director, Chrissy Stonebraker-Martínez. I asked Chrissy