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Ohio Lost 4.2% of Jobs During Recession
"COLUMBUS, Ohio -- One of every 24 jobs in Ohio has been lost since 2000, according to a report from the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies. In the seventh annual The State of Poverty in Ohio: 2005 report, the association found that incomes rose sharply during the last 16 years in communities where taxpayers make more than $100,000 annually, while incomes simultaneously fell in Ohio's low income communities and all of its large cities except Cincinnati. Income inequality remains a serious problem in Ohio.But the 1986 to 2000 pattern of rising income inequality in Ohio ceased during the recession, the report found. Surprisingly, Ohio's most affluent communities suffered the largest income losses. During the recession, Ohio's rich have gotten poorer, and Ohio's poor have gotten poorer. Incomes of average taxpayers fell in 26 of Ohio's 30 most affluent communities.Since the Buckeye State was hit much harder by the recession in 2000 than the rest of the country, levels of poverty and human suffering soared as jobs and paychecks disappeared across the state in massive numbers. Ohio lost 4.2% of its jobs during the recession while the United States was losing less than 1% of its jobs (0.5%), the report found.Ohio was losing jobs in the current recession throughout the year in 2001, and it continued to lose jobs rapidly throughout 2002 and 2003. Although the technical recession ended in the United States as a whole, Ohio remained mired in full recession during the winter of 2004, the report found.In the most recently available figures from the complete count of Ohio jobs, Ohio lost 228,656 jobs between 2000 and 2004. One out of every 24 jobs in Ohio disappeared. Thus, hundreds of thousands of Ohio workers and their families lost paychecks. Even as Ohio finally stopped hemorrhaging jobs on a statewide basis in mid-2004, 40 of Ohio's 88 counties continue to lose jobs. Those counties include Stark, Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Hamilton, Franklin and dozens of smaller counties, the report found.Ohio's job creation performance was unusually bad even before the recession started, and the state has now set an all-time record 106 consecutive months when its job growth performance has been below the United States national average, the report found. This streak of almost nine years began in March 1996 and has continued unabated since then.The impact of the recession was intensified by the fact that 87% of Ohio's job losses during the last three years have been high wage manufacturing jobs. Ohio lost 139,705 manufacturing jobs during just the last three years, a -14.5% "growth rate." The average Ohio manufacturing job pays $45,957, while all other Ohio jobs average a much lower $32,944 in annual earnings. Continued erosion of high wage manufacturing jobs makes it difficult for Ohio workers without high levels of education to support their families. The massive manufacturing job losses rippled rapidly through the rest of the Ohio economy, causing the loss of over 100,000 other jobs, the report found.Other key findings in the report include:Ohio's job losses have been severe on a statewide basis; 64 of Ohio's 88 counties lost jobs during the recession. One out of every 34 Franklin County jobs disappeared. Cuyahoga County alone lost 71,375 jobs during the recession, a loss of 8.8% of all local jobs, meaning that one out of every 11 Cuyahoga County jobs vanished.The federal 2000 census missed tens of thousands of poor children in Ohio. The number of poor children who were poor and who received some form of public assistance in April 2000 exceeded the number of poor children reported by the 2000 census in 36 of Ohio's 88 counties. The census certainly missed large numbers of Ohio residents in a population and poverty under-count, especially in large urban centers such as Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, and Youngstown. Further, the census was conducted before the massive job and income losses caused by the recession in 2000 in Ohio. Mammoth job losses from the recession caused poverty increases in Ohio that were not measured by the 2000 census, since the census was taken before the recession started.Three of the top 20 poorest cities in the United States are now located in Ohio. Cleveland ranks No. 1 as the poorest city, while Cincinnati ranks No. 15 and Toledo ranks No. 20.The relationship between cash welfare recipients and trends in local labor markets has completely disappeared in Ohio. During recessions in the past, cash welfare caseloads always rose sharply as families relied on a welfare safety net after they lost jobs and paychecks. Ohio chose to enforce a three year time limit on cash welfare just as the huge job losses from the recession hit the state. As a result, 87 of Ohio's 88 counties had periods during 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 when their cash welfare caseload declines exceeded total job growth in the county.The United States has cut the value of the federal minimum wage by 41% since 1968. During most years of the 1960s, a full-time minimum wage job generated a paycheck that lifted a typical Ohio family out of poverty. Following continual cuts in the United States minimum wage, a minimum wage job now leaves a typical Ohio family at only 68% of the poverty level.The analysis was conducted by George Zeller, senior researcher for the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland, the community action agency serving Cuyahoga County.The Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies represents most of the State's 52 locally governed anti-poverty community action organizations, covering all 88 counties. Community Action Agencies are governed by boards made up of low-income people, local political leaders and representatives of the private sector. Visit the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies: www.oacaa.org "