COLUMBUS – More than a decade after the recession, a greater portion of Ohio’s population was living in poverty than before the downturn began.
In 2017, 14.9 percent of Ohio’s population was considered to be in poverty, compared with 13.3 percent in 2006, the year before the recession began, according to a new report from a progressive-leaning think tank.
Federal tax cuts and higher benefits from programs aimed at helping the poor softened the blow, but those programs are now starved for funding, according to the report from Policy Matters Ohio.
“More than 184,000 Ohioans are living on less than $2 a day – that’s about as many people as live in Akron. But our lawmakers have cut programs that help the neediest,” said Wendy Patton, the group’s senior project director and author of the report.
The Obama administration and Congress provided money to the states which allowed Ohio to provide disability benefits to people living in extreme poverty, cash assistance to low-income families, public child care, home visits for at risk mothers and babies and other programs, but when the stimulus money ran out in 2011, state lawmakers did not replace the federal funds, Patton said.
The state stopped accepting new applications for the Disability Financial Assistance program, benefiting disabled people in extreme poverty in 2017 (see graph).
“We have people waiting nearly a year and a half for approval of Social Security Disability Insurance from the federal government, but state policymakers eliminated a program that bridged that gap, even though the federal government repaid the cost once people were approved,” Patton said
State support of Ohio Works First, provides aid to families with children in deep poverty, has fallen by 20 percent since 2011, Patton said.
Her report sounds a note of optimism as Republican Governor Mike DeWine promised during his campaign to improve Ohio’s early childhood system by expanding eligibility for child care subsidies, improving child care program quality and tripling the number of families served through home visits.
However, DeWine still has to work with a GOP-dominated legislature as the process of approving the state’s 2020-21 budget gets underway.