Is This The Ohio Miracle?

USA Today: October unemployment rates fall in 28 states.

Ohio’s unemployment rate in October rose slightly to 7.5 percent, even though the state says it added jobs in the past two months, according to data released Friday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The Columbus area’s strong growth in employment since the recession ended might be showing signs of dimming. The region has lost 8,000 jobs over the past three months, including 6,100 in October, according to data compiled by Bill LaFayette, owner of the economic-consulting firm Regionomics, based on state figures released yesterday.

In spite of more than a billion dollars of tax dollars* being transferred to the quasi private and unaccountable Jobs Ohio organization, new jobs don't seem to be happening.

*The long-awaited transfer of Ohio’s wholesale liquor franchise to JobsOhio was completed Friday along with sale of $1.5 billion in bonds to finance the acquisition.

The transfer means Jobs Ohio, the state’s private, nonprofit economic development, can begin tapping about $100 million in annual liquor profits to fund its job-creation efforts.

Added to this news our state government attack on local governments and public education.:

Reducing or eliminating the return of tax revenue to local governments and schools.

According to Shttp://www.policymattersohio.org/4percent-oct2013 Senate bill 210 would take the savings from Medicaid expansion and use it for an across-the-board income-tax cut that might buy a cup of coffee for low-income Ohioans but would give the average top earner enough for a trip to Paris.

“The proposed income-tax cut would further tilt the tax system in favor of affluent Ohioans,” said Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters Ohio. “Ohioans would be better served if we rehired police and firefighters, put teachers back in our classrooms, and invested more to protect vulnerable elderly from neglect and abuse.”  A Policy Matters Ohio policy brief last week identified some of the ways that savings from the Medicaid expansion could be used.

Under Senate Bill 210 as it is now, libraries and local governments would see additional annual reductions of millions of dollars a year, since each receives 1.66 percent of tax revenues. It is also far from clear that the anticipated savings from Medicaid expansion will match the size of the tax cut that has been proposed.- See more at: http://www.policymattersohio.org/4percent-oct2013#sthash.AZzvJZOa.dpuf

Paul Hunter