The rich are getting poorer, and the poor are getting poorer.
In its sixth annual “The State of Poverty in Ohio: 2004” report, the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies reported yesterday that Ohio’s most affluent communities suffered the largest income losses as a result of the Ohio recession.
According to the report, Ohio lost 4.3 percent of its jobs during the recession, while the United States lost 1.5 percent of its jobs. Ohio lost 233,488 jobs between 2000 and 2003, which means one out of every 23 jobs in Ohio disappeared.
The OACAA stated that Cuyahoga County lost over 64,000 jobs while Franklin County lost 19,000 jobs. The loss is the equivalent of one out of every 13 jobs and one out of every 36 jobs respectively.
The recession put more Ohioans under the poverty level.
“We need to start thinking about those who are suffering the most from this disaster,” said George Zeller, senior researcher for the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland. “The United States has cut the value of the federal minimum wage by 40 percent since 1968.”
A full-time minimum wage job during the 1960s generated a paycheck that lifted a typical family out of poverty, Zeller said. Today, minimum wage now leaves a family 30 percent under the poverty level.
According to the 2000 census, Ohio’s statewide poverty rate was 10.6 percent, meaning that one-ninth of Ohio’s population lived in poverty.
Zeller stated that the relationship between work and welfare doesn’t exist.
“Its a catastrophe. It was supposed to be welfare to work, but instead it became welfare to not work,” he said.
Philip Cole, executive director for the OACAA, said the poor are being pushed into a labor market that is in serious trouble.
Cuts to welfare have made the situation even more dire for the poverty-stricken in Ohio, Zeller said. A typical Ohio family of three on cash welfare for an entire year received $10,997 in 1970, placing them 28 percent below poverty level. In 2004, that same family receives $4,476, a 59-percent cut in benefit size, placing that family 71 percent below poverty level.
According to the OACAA, job losses because of the recession caused poverty increases that weren’t measured.
“The federal 2000 census missed tens of thousands of poor children in Ohio,” said the OACAA in a statement. “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.”
