COLUMBUS – That old saying that a rising tide lifts all boats has not proven true for Ohioans, according to a new report from a progressive-leaning research group.
Despite more than 10 years of economic expansion, many Ohio workers remain idled and those who are working are finding it difficult to make ends meet on the money in their paychecks.
“If you think about the fact that we are supposed to be in the final year of the longest expansion on record, we’re really not seeing the kinds of results that we should for this point in the cycle. Workers just aren’t getting their share of the economy,” says Amy Hanauer with Policy Matters Ohio, author of the group’s “State of Working Ohio 2019” report.
She says median hourly wages are up about $1.50 cents an hour since 2011 when adjusted for inflation but that’s 50 cents an hour behind the nationwide increase and leaves the state’s median age at a level that is lower than it was in 1979.
Nine of Ohio’s 10 most common jobs pay under $36,000 a year, too little for a family of three to afford food without aid, the report says.
Hanauer’s report also calls attention to what she calls the “employment paradox”: Ohio’s unemployment rate of 4.5 percent in 2018 was its best since 2001 but labor force participation – people currently employed and those seeking jobs – is about 62 percent, the second-lowest it’s been in nearly four decades.
The number of working Ohioans remains about 28,000 less than in 2000.
The report also highlights income disparity. Hanauer says the top 10 percent of earners saw their wages grow by more than $9 an hour between 1979 and 2018 but wages dropped slightly for the other 90 percent.
Disparities are even greater among certain segments of the population. The research shows full-time working women earn roughly $7,000 dollars a year less than their male counterparts and black Ohioans earn over $10,000 dollars a year less than whites when both work full-time, year-round.