April 03, 2015
April 03, 2015
The majority of states have added back the total number of jobs they lost to the 2007 recession. This is good news as we approach our sixth year of recovery. Unfortunately, Ohio isn’t among them.
Ohio leads the twelve states that are yet to recover the total number of jobs lost to the 2007 recession. According to the most recent jobs data released by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, covering February 2015, the state is still off the mark by 0.6 percent, or a little more than 32,000 jobs. The nation as a whole has added back all the jobs lost and an additional 2.0 percent. That’s more than 2 million jobs.
Much of Ohio’s tax and budget policy is based on the premise that lower taxes and less government spending generates faster job growth. That promise has not panned out.
When we measure total job growth since the 2005 tax overhaul, we have lost more than 27,000 jobs, giving us the sixth-worst job growth rate in the nation since that time.
The fact is that state and local tax levels are not correlated with job growth. Many factors contribute to whether a state economy booms or busts. A quick glance at the chart shows us that states with large oil, gas, and energy sectors are the fastest growers in the nation. Some states with higher tax levels have robust job growth and some with lower tax levels are struggling to add jobs. (I’m looking at you New York and Nevada). There is no consensus that tax cuts generate speedier economic growth, and Ohio’s long-running experiment with tax cuts has not produced the promised results.
And just in case you were wondering, there also appears to be no relationship between a school’s NCAA performance and its home state’s post-recession job growth ranking. According to job growth performance, Kentucky would lose to Manhattan in the first round. Texas teams make up half of the Final Four and North Dakota State would cut down the nets on Monday. This is an absolutely terrible way to fill out your bracket, (see photo). I do not recommend it for your 2016 March Madness strategy. Its always best to stick with UK. Go Cats!
-- Hannah Halbert, researcher and member of the Big Blue Nation
1 of 22