Work in progress Policy Matters’ annual State of Working Ohio report finds that federal spending helped Ohio recover jobs more rapidly than after previous recessions, and that the state now has more jobs than ever before, breaking a record that has existed for nearly a quarter century. This rebound positioned many workers
6.6%: Median share, among all racial groups, of Ohio students who were economically secure and chronically absent from school in 2022-23. 26.2%: Median share who were economically insecure and chronically absent. As researcher Tanisha Pruitt, PhD, puts it in her new report, “economic security insulates students of all identity subgroups against absenteeism.” That’s why, among
Budgetpalooza! 110965: Technically not a stat but an Appropriation Line Item (ALI) number in the state budget. (In this case it’s the ALI for Ohio’s Public Library Fund — one of our favorites!) We have been talking a lot about ALI’s lately, especially in Policy Matters Ohio’s Guide to the State Budget,
A Note from our Budget Researcher We say that the budget is a moral document, but what does that mean for Ohioans? There’s no better example of the budget as a moral document in Ohio than our public library system. Growing up, one of my favorite places in the whole
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42%: Share of Americans living in a state with a minimum wage of $15 or more. Ohioans are not among them—at least not yet. Although the campaign to let Ohioans vote on the minimum wage came up short this election cycle, Ohioans still deserve a fair return on their work, as explained by
Numeric news from Policy Matters 28.7%: Share of Black women in Ohio who experienced poverty in the last 12 months, as of 2022 (the most recent data available). Because economic disparities are often greatest where policy failures intersect, that number is higher for Black women than for Black men or white
Numeric news from Policy Matters 8.07%: Sales tax rate Ohio would have to implement just to make up half the revenue lost under a plan by anti-government legislators to eliminate the state income tax. That would be the highest state sales tax in the nation, disproportionately harm the lowest-income Ohioans, and further
66%: Reduction in the number of involuntary commitments to Ohio’s psychiatric hospitals, from 2019 through 2023. At first glance, that remarkable drop in the number of Ohioans being forced into treatment may seem like a positive sign — but the truth is much more complicated. Kathryn Poe digs into the
4: Number of weeks we get the absolute pleasure of getting to know Halim Pratama, a visiting fellow from Indonesia through the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Professional Fellow Program of the US Department of State. As a newly elected city council member in Malinau, Indonesia, Halim is spending the
Policy Matters Ohio stands with peaceful demonstrators occupying campuses around the state. Students are coming together to form the kind of movement Ohio needs: one that includes members of all faiths, races, classes, and genders, standing in solidarity to demand better from our leaders. As a fiscal policy think tank,
More jobs don’t necessarily mean better ones
This piece was previously published on Cleveland.com and is reprinted here with permission. Every year, Policy Matters Ohio examines how well the economy is working for working Ohioans. On paper, employment and wages in 2023 were better than they have been in a long time. But how the economy looks on paper