Saturday Stats
Posted April 22, 2023 in eNews
$150M: The Ohio House released its version of the state budget this week. The bill includes some positive elements, but those are outweighed by a variety of bad moves, such as removing $150 million proposed by Gov. DeWine that would have helped child care professionals and professionals in other critical occupations afford child care for their own children. Read our initial response here.
$400M: The House budget includes a tax proposal that’s less bad than what we expected to see, based on the awful ideas House leaders were considering. Still, it's not great: It would do nothing for people with incomes under $28,000. People making less than $50,000 would see a few dollars at most. And it would provide a $222 tax cut to people making more than $100,000. That permanent tax cut would cost more than $400 million a year over the long term, according to the Legislative Service Commission. Overall, it’s less bad than HB 1. But Ohioans deserve better than “less bad.”
450%: The House budget also includes a proposal that would make private school vouchers available to families making up to 450% of the Federal Poverty Level. (That’s more than $100K a year for a family of three.) That would mean even more public dollars being diverted to pay for private school tuition, one of the many school-funding issues explored by State Policy Fellow Tanisha Pruitt, PhD, in her new report.
4,819,700: Ohio’s private sector has officially recovered the number of jobs lost since February 2020, reaching 4,819,700 jobs in March. The public sector still falls 20,800 jobs short of full recovery. As Senior Researcher Michael Shields says in this month’s JobWatch, “State and local government officials need … to use the state budget … to boost pay and restore those jobs still missing on their watch.”
0.000015%: Six transgender girls play middle- or high school sports in Ohio, out of 400,000 student athletes in grades 7-12. That’s 0.000015%. You wouldn’t think such a tiny sliver of the population would warrant so much upset and attention from our legislators — until you realize that, in addition to being another attempt to demonize our neighbors and divide Ohioans, anti-trans legislation is part of the attack on public schools and educators in general, driven by a perverse desire to emulate Florida (of all places). As Senior Researcher Piet van Lier put it in a recent column for Cleveland.com: When it comes to education, what happens in Florida should stay there.
89.4%: We were so excited to see our founding Executive Director Amy Hanauer’s work in Ms. Magazine last week. Amy notes that ludicrously low corporate tax rates disproportionately benefit men, who make up 89.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs. Making sure corporations pay what they truly owe in taxes is one step toward creating a fair, feminist tax code that would benefit all of us.
2: Saturday Stats comes out two times a month. During budget season, a lot can happen in a couple weeks. If you want more regular updates, follow us on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, and subscribe on YouTube.
Action Items:
TODAY: Join the InterReligious Task Force (IRTF), Young Latino Network and Avanzamos Unidos for Liberation Lab: Building a Better World Together, IRTF’s 23rd annual Social Justice Teach-In. TODAY, Sat. April 22, from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Register here, or just drop in at Cleveland’s PIVOT Center for Arts & Expression.
Head to the Statehouse for a day of action! HJR 1 would shred Ohio’s constitution and allow just 41% of voters to override the will of the rest of us on ballot issues related to abortion, minimum wage, and any other changes the people of Ohio support. Meet up at Trinity Episcopal Church on Th., April 27 at 12:15 p.m. and join the march to the Statehouse ahead of the House vote.
Join Ohio Women’s Alliance to collect signatures to get reproductive freedom on the ballot this November! Sign up here.
Learn about eliminating collateral sanctions at Building Freedom Ohio & National Reentry Week’s Policy Summit, Sat. April 29, at Tri-C Metro Campus in Cleveland. Registration starts at 8 a.m. For more info, email seanna@ohorganizing.org
Provide public comment to the Ohio Dept of Education on a draft of the Student Interactions with Peace Officers Model Curriculum. Until 4 p.m. on Mon., April 24.