Ohioans deserve truth from Kennedy on funding for rural health
Tomorrow, when the City Club of Cleveland hosts Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ohioans concerned about rural health care deserve to hear the truth about what last year’s federal budget bill (H.R. 1) will cost their communities. During H.R. 1 negotiations, Ohio was flagged as being home to 11 […]
Spring cleaning for Ohio’s tax code
This piece originally appeared on Cleveland.com on April 5, 2026. It’s spring-cleaning time, and just as we must decide whether certain items still make sense in our households, we should do the same for state-level tax expenditures — another name for tax breaks. The term covers anything from deductions, exemptions, and credits to preferential tax […]
Repeal the property tax? Let’s take that off the table
This op-ed originally appeared on Cleveland.com on February 22, 2026. Ohio has some of the nation’s most stringent limits on property taxes. For many Ohioans, those restrictions have kept property taxes from becoming prohibitively high. But for others, increasing property values have made property taxes unaffordable. This has led anti-tax advocates to gather signatures for […]
Remembering Policy Matters partner Rick McHugh
Rick McHugh, who passed away on Christmas Eve, was instrumental in Policy Matters Ohio’s work defending and improving our unemployment compensation system and supporting workers’ rights. As a staffer at the National Employment Law Project (NELP), he filled us in on how the UC system worked for one of our very first reports in 2001, […]
Remembering Policy Matters co-founder Michael Charney
Michael Charney, who died Jan. 2, did everything with gusto. With others, including his wife, the late CJ Prentiss, Michael helped found Policy Matters Ohio, in part so legislators and others would be armed with research from a progressive perspective. But that was just one of Michael’s many strategies. For Michael, everything, even going to dinner, required a strategy. His […]
Ohio senators should support workforce act
This op-ed originally appeared in Dayton Daily News on January 16, 2026. Imagine working for decades to keep our country safe, only to have your contract torn up overnight. In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order that unilaterally stripped the collective bargaining rights of more than one million workers. These workers — including a […]
Amazon data center proposal is a bad deal for Wilmington
On January 6, 2026, 44 people testified before the City Council of Wilmington, Ohio, urging elected officials to withhold approval of the proposed site plan for an Amazon data center in their community. A video of that meeting is available here. The council’s Planning Commission voted unanimously to withhold approval of the Amazon data center […]
Policy Matters Ohio pens a wish list to Santa
This op-ed originally appeared on Cleveland.com on November 30, 2025. Dear Santa, At Policy Matters Ohio, we’re constantly coming up with ideas to make our state more vibrant, equitable, sustainable and inclusive. But many Ohio legislators aren’t too keen on public policy that works for everyday Ohioans. In the spirit of the holiday season, we […]
So-called relief will hurt schools, not lower Columbus property taxes by a cent
This piece was originally published in the Columbus Dispatch on October 20, 2025. Columbus resident Bobby Chafin painted a picture of the hard choices some Ohioans are facing due to recent increases in property taxes in his Sept. 27 letter to the editor. In short, Chafin described how he and his wife are selling off their […]
AI and other tech are consuming our electric grid
This piece originally appeared on Cleveland.com on October 19, 2025 Across Ohio, technology companies are racing to build data centers — massive facilities necessary for digital technologies ranging from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency. And a handful of billionaires are raking in the profits, with Ohioans paying the price for the extraordinary strain data centers put […]
The ugly truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill
This piece originally appeared on Cleveland.com on September 14, 2025. After passing President Trump’s signature budget legislation this summer, the bill’s proponents began a PR campaign to convince Americans not to believe their eyes. Legislators who voted for the bill are shouting from the rooftops that they didn’t chose to cut Medicaid, jeopardize rural hospitals, and increase the national debt, all to pay for more tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthiest households. The story they tell about […]
Property tax circuit breaker is effective, targeted tax reform
Messages for discussing property tax reform in Ohio. (Read the full report.) Key Message Some Ohioans are paying too much in property taxes. Reform should help them — without making our tax code even less equitable and without harming schools and other public services that rely on property taxes. Talking Points