Saturday Stats
$4B: Amount of state revenue that could be generated annually with any one of the Fair Share tax proposals included in our recent report. With help from our friends at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, we analyzed three different models of a progressive state income tax — none of which would impact the […]
Saturday Stats
23: Number of days until Ohio’s 136th General Assembly reconvenes for one last opportunity to make policy before the end of term. With pending legislation set to expire, the lame duck session is often a scramble to pass last-minute bills — and sometimes to sneak them through without drawing attention. As always, we have a […]
Saturday Stats
124,876: Number of additional childcare slots Ohio could make available if providers had enough staff to operate at full capacity. Three-quarters of Ohio’s childcare centers are below full enrollment, not because they lack space, but because they cannot recruit and retain enough workers. (Our new factsheets show the share of under-capacity childcare centers in every […]
Saturday Stats
For the 26th Labor Day in a row, Policy Matters is releasing our State of Working Ohio report (fondly known as SOWO around the office). This year’s theme is The Costs of Inaction — as in, the consequences of legislators’ ongoing failure to act in the best interests of working people. Of course, policymakers have […]
Saturday Stats
Numeric news from Policy Matters $7,395: Maximum value of a federal Pell Grant for the 2026-27 school year. That money can be used to pay for college tuition and related costs, and is awarded depending on students’ financial need. It’s an important tool for making college more affordable, though it’s not enough. Ohio’s own need-based […]
Saturday Stats
84.5%: Share of Ohio jobs that are in occupations for which the 2025 median wage was less than the cost of living for a family of three. (The median wage is in the middle: Half the workers in those occupations are paid more; half are paid less.) As noted in our annual report on wage […]
Saturday Stats
As this issue of Saturday Stats was going to print, we learned that federal agents had raided the offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and attempted to question and intimidate OOC staff, board, and leaders around the state. Above all, we are grateful that our friends, allies, and partners in OOC are safe. OOC has […]
Saturday Stats
$1.6B: Amount of revenue lost to Ohio’s data center sales tax exemption last year — about 11 times the originally projected cost. Back in January of 2025, we called that original number a lowball estimate, but we didn’t know it would be that low. This billion-and-a-half-dollar subsidy for some of the world’s richest corporations is […]
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 […]
Saturday Stats
Numeric news from Policy Matters 3: Number of key components of a successful continuum of care for people experiencing a mental health crisis: someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go. Cleveland’s passage of Tanisha’s Law and the countywide expansion of Frontline’s Care Response program are positive steps for emergency crisis response in […]
Saturday Stats
$1,088,091: Amount by which the state budget — signed last year by Gov. Mike DeWine — will underfund public schools in East Cleveland. The governor singled out East Cleveland City Schools in his State of the State address, rightly celebrating recent improvements in the district. What he failed to mention is that the final state […]
Saturday Stats
$68,812: According to our friends at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), that’s the average annual reduction (since 2005) in state taxes paid by the highest-income 1% of Ohioans — those with annual income over $753,900. That’s enough to buy a new Lexus every year. $459: Average annual reduction in state taxes paid by […]