Is State Issue 2 on the Money?
Canton Repository By G. Patrick Kelley Should the minimum wage be higher than $5.15? State Issue 2 would raise it to $6.85. Labor, community and religious organizations back the raise. But a host of business organizations say the proposed constitutional amendment could cause job losses, and it carries some dangerous fine print that has nothing […]
Sides Weigh Merits of Minimum Wage Hike
Dayton Business Journal By Suzelle Tempero Young’s Jersey Dairy Farm in Yellow Springs, known for its ice cream, employs about 300 people during its summer peak. But all of its employees, even the 16-year-olds working their first jobs, earned more than minimum wage this year. However, spillover from raising the minimum wage would effect his […]
Corporate Success Hasn’t Benefited Lowest-paid
Columbus Dispatch By Alan Johnson Worker productivity, corporate profits and executive wages have risen in recent years, but Ohio’s lowest-paid workers haven’t shared the benefits. That is the conclusion of a study released yesterday by the Center for American Progress and Policy Matters Ohio, a nonpartisan but union-affiliated policy group. The study said Ohio worker […]
More Cleveland workers get free tax preparation Local coalition expands access to Earned Income credit
More working families in Cuyahoga County received free tax preparation at volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) sites in 2006 than in any previous year. The Cuyahoga EITC Coalition filed more than 3,444 tax returns with nearly half qualifying for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The Coalition returned more than $4.2 million in total refunds […]
Statutory State Spending Limit Won’t Help Economy, Report Says
Gongwer News Service The measure to limit government spending the General Assembly passed in May is unlikely to foster economic growth in Ohio, according to a study released this week. The Policy Matters Ohio study found no correlation between the size of a state’s public sector and private sector growth. “In order to have a […]
Long-Simmering Minimum-Wage Debate Heats Up
Columbus Dispatch By Rita Price and Alan Johnson For Theresa Patterson, the minimum wage isn’t about politics ormorality. It’s about bus fare, grocery money and rent. On a recent morning, the 52-year-old grandmother boarded COTAbuses four times, piled into a temp agency van twice and cleanedbathrooms for eight hours at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. […]
Output Up, Profits Up, But Wages Lag
Critics say there should be a better distribution of the economic ‘pie.’By Jim DeBrosse Dayton Daily News If you’ve been working harder for a paycheck that stretches less and less from week to week, you have lots of company these days, economists say. Wages for every level but the top 10 percent of paid employees […]
Studies Show Salaries Aren’t Keeping Up with Inflation
Dayton Daily News By Jim DeBrosse CENTERVILLE
Census: Area Closer to Poverty
Cincinnati Enquirer Poverty increased in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky between 1999 and 2005, while median incomes rose at less than the national average in all but two local counties, new Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday show. It’s another bad economic sign for the region, which has seen its jobless rate exceed the nation’s since […]
House Ways and Means
The Hannah Report The committee heard from representatives from the business community and Zach Schiller from Policy Matters Ohio. Daniel Navin, assistant vice president for tax policy, Ohio Chamber of Commerce, told the committee that the chamber’s position is that the Legislature has spoken on the issue and the CAT is now a new part […]
Tax Debate Continues Before House Panel
Policy Group Questions Impact of Recent Changes; Tax Manager Urges Speed-up of Cuts Gongwer News Service The House Ways & Means Committee fielded varying points of view Tuesday on the subject of “tax reform.” A business advisor relayed support for accelerating the scheduled tax cuts and a Policy Matters Ohio researcher cast doubts on the […]
Trying to Make A Decent Living
While some janitors struggle to get by, others are climbing into the middle class. Behind the new battle over America’s low-wage workersBy Jeremy Caplan Time Magazine It’s 9 P.M., and Craig Jones has just finished dumping 400 trash cans’ worth of garbage into the Cincinnati Textile Building’s basement compactor. The weighty refuse he carries each […]