Invest
in People

Welfare,
Jobs and Social Services

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VOLUME 16,
ISSUE 1                                                                               
      FEBRUARY
25, 2005

HHS
RELEASES 2005 POVERTY GUIDELINES

The
following table shows several variations on the poverty level for 2005
since a number of programs such as the Food Stamps, Children’s Health
Insurance Program; subsidized child care; Medicaid; and the Prevention,
Retention and Contingency program use different levels.

The
Guidelines were issued February 18, 2005 in Volume 70, Number 33 of the
Federal Register. Pages 8373-8375. Published guidelines provide family
size and annual poverty levels. Calculations by the Ohio United Way. More
information about poverty guidelines and poverty thresholds can be found
at http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05poverty.shtml

OHIO
LOSES 228,656 JOBS DURING RECESSION;

4.2%
OF OHIO’s JOBS LOST

By
Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies

On
February 10, 2005, the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies (OACAA)
released a new statistical analysis documenting alarming levels of human
suffering across the state. This suffering has been caused by the loss of
228,656 jobs in Ohio. As a result of the recession, more than 4% of all
Ohio jobs have disappeared. One of every 24 Ohio jobs has been lost since
2000.

In
its seventh annual The State of Poverty in Ohio: 2005 report, OACAA
reports that incomes rose

sharply
during the last sixteen years in communities where taxpayers make over
$100,000 annually, while incomes simultaneously fell in Ohio’s low
income communities and all of its large cities except

Cincinnati.
Income inequality remains a serious problem in Ohio. 

But,
the 1986-2000 pattern of rising income inequality in Ohio ceased during
the recession. Surprisingly, Ohio’s most affluent communities suffered
the largest income losses as a result of the Ohio recession. During the
recession, Ohio’s rich have gotten poorer, and Ohio’s poor have gotten
poorer. A falling tide sank all boats. During the recession, incomes of
average taxpayers fell in 26 of Ohio’s 30 most affluent communities.

The
analysis was conducted by George Zeller, senior researcher for the Council
for Economic

Opportunities
in Greater Cleveland (CEOGC), the community action agency serving Cuyahoga
County.

Since
Ohio was hit much harder by the 2000’s recession than the rest of the
country was hit, levels of

poverty
and human suffering soared as jobs and paychecks disappeared across the
state in massive

numbers.
Ohio lost 4.2% of its jobs during the recession while the United States
was losing less than 1%  of
its jobs (0.5%).

Ohio
was losing jobs in the current recession throughout the year in 2001, and
it continued to rapidly lose jobs throughout 2002 and 2003. Although the
technical recession ended in the United States as a whole, Ohio remained
mired in full recession during the winter of 2004. In the most recently
available figures from the complete count of Ohio jobs, it now is known
that Ohio lost 228,656 jobs between 2000 and 2004. One out of every 24
jobs in Ohio disappeared. Thus, hundreds of thousands of Ohio workers and
their families lost paychecks.

Even
as Ohio finally stopped hemorrhaging jobs on a statewide basis in
mid-2004, 40 of Ohio’s 88 counties continue to lose jobs in the most
recently available figures. Those counties include Stark (Canton),
Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Montgomery (Dayton), Hamilton (Cincinnati), Franklin
(Columbus), and dozens of smaller counties.

Ohio’s
sub-par job creation performance was made much worse by the recession, but
Ohio’s job creation performance was unusually bad even before the
recession started. Ohio has now gone an all-time record 106 consecutive
months when its job growth performance has been below the United States
national average. This alarming streak of almost nine years began in March
1996, and has continued unabated since then.

The
impact of the recession was intensified by the fact that 87% of Ohio’s
job losses during the last three years have been high wage manufacturing
jobs. Ohio lost 139,705 manufacturing jobs during just the last three
years, a –14.5% “growth rate.” The average Ohio manufacturing job
pays $45,957, while all other Ohio jobs average a much lower $32,944 in
annual earnings. Continued erosion of high wage

manufacturing
jobs makes it difficult for Ohio workers without high levels of education
to support their families.

The
massive manufacturing job losses rippled rapidly through the rest of the
Ohio economy, causing the loss of over 100,000 other jobs.

According
to Phil Cole, executive director of the Ohio Association of Community
Action Agencies

(OACAA),
“The best way out of poverty for any family is a good job that pays a
living wage. It is very

alarming
that instead of employment growth we have suffered huge job and paycheck
losses in our state. Since hundreds of thousands of families are suffering
across Ohio, this is no time to cut supports for our low income families
who are trying to escape poverty.”

Other
key findings in the report include:

•
Ohio’s job losses have been severe on a statewide basis. 64 of Ohio’s 88
counties lost jobs

during
the recession. Even so-called “Recession Proof” Columbus lost
20,447 jobs between 2000

and
2004. One out of every 34 Franklin County jobs disappeared. In Cleveland,
Cuyahoga

County
alone lost 71,375 jobs during the recession, a loss of 8.8% of all local
jobs, meaning that

one
out of every 11 Cuyahoga County jobs vanished. 64 of Ohio’s 88 counties
have lost jobs

since
the spring of 2000.

•
The 2000 Census is flawed and is obsolete. The federal 2000 census missed
tens of thousands of

poor
children in Ohio. The number of poor children who were poor and who
received some form

of
public assistance in April 2000 exceeded the number of poor children
reported by the 2000

census
in 36 of Ohio’s 88 counties. The census certainly missed large numbers of
Ohio residents

in
a population and poverty undercount, especially in large urban centers
such as Cleveland,

Columbus,
Akron, and Youngstown. Further, the census was conducted before the
massive job

and
income losses caused by the 2000’s recession in Ohio. Mammoth job losses
from the

recession
caused poverty increases in Ohio that were not measured by 2000 census,
since the

census
was taken before the recession started.

•
Three of the top twenty poorest cities in the United States are now
located in Ohio.

Cleveland
ranks #1 as the USA’s poorest city, while Cincinnati ranks #15, and
Toledo ranks #20.

•
The relationship between cash welfare recipients and trends in local labor
markets has

completely
disappeared in Ohio. During recessions in the past, cash welfare caseloads
always

rose
sharply as families relied on a welfare safety net after they lost jobs
and paychecks. Ohio

chose
to enforce a three year time limit on cash welfare just as the huge job
losses from the

recession
hit the state. As a result, 87 of Ohio’s 88 counties had periods during
2001, 2002, 2003,

and
2004 when their OWF/TANF cash welfare caseload declines exceeded total job
growth in the

county.
Indeed, a very large majority of Ohio counties lost jobs as they continued
to enforce

welfare
terminations through the welfare time limit.

•
The United States has cut the value of the federal minimum wage by 41%
since 1968. During

most
years of the 1960’s, a full time all year minimum wage job generated a
paycheck that lifted

a
typical Ohio family out of poverty. Following continual cuts in the United
States minimum

wage,
a minimum wage job now leaves a typical Ohio family at only 68% of the
poverty level.

This
policy dictates that very low wage Ohio workers should live in poverty,
even if they have a

job
on a full time all year basis.

Comprehensive
income data for all school districts in all 88 Ohio counties during each
year between 1986 and 2002 are available on the internet at: http://www.ceogc.org/research/OHI8602L.pdf 

Free
copies of the full The State of Poverty in Ohio: 2005 report are available
on the internet at:

http://www.ceogc.org/research/REP2005i.pdf

The
Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies represents most of the
State’s 52 locally governed anti-poverty community action organizations,
covering all 88 counties. Community Action Agencies are governed by boards
made up of low-income people, local political leaders and representatives
of the private sector. They provide a comprehensive menu of
cost-effective, one-stop services to help Ohioans on the path to
self-sufficiency. Ohio’s CAAs collectively, for example, provide Head
Start services to roughly 75 percent of all enrolled children; prepare
over 7 million meals for low income residents and direct health care to
over 231,000 patients a year.

                                                                       
           
Robin Harris,
Director of Public Policy, Editor