Census: Ohio poverty at more than 30-year high

[OhioChick]

Source: AP

Posted: 7:01 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new census report shows Ohio's poverty rate is the highest in more than 30 years, and median household incomes are at their lowest levels in more than a quarter century.

Commerce National Bank chief economic adviser James Newton tells The Columbus Dispatch the census survey released Tuesday reflects the hits the state has taken from the recession, the loss of manufacturing jobs and other factors.

Census officials report that 15.3 percent of Ohioans are in poverty, which translates to a family of four living on less than $22,300 a year. The share of Ohioans living in poverty has never been higher since record-keeping began in 1980.

Also, the state's inflation-adjusted median household income last year was about $46,100, the lowest in records going back to 1984.



Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/state/census-ohio-poverty-at-more-than-30-year-high

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[Overseas]

2. K&R. Shows what those tax cuts for the rich have done. /nt

[rfranklin]

3. Keep voting Republican assholes...

They just don't learn, do they?

[Botany]

4. E.Z. to explain

More people should know the story of Rocky Boot, company in Nelsonville, OH

They closed down a profitable 50 + year operation and moved the manufacturing out of
the country and left an outlet store that pays people $8.00 an hour.

[lindysalsagal]

18. Love to know the source for that graph.

[Donnachaidh]

5. {{{OC}}} k&r

It's tough to see it happening in real life - but at least the information is out there, so the naysayers and blue sky weenies can't say it's not happening.

[buckrogers1965]

6. Not adjusting for inflation enough

Inflation in the past few years has been insane, doubling the price of fuel and car repairs. Rental rates on property are increasing rapidly too. This huge increase in gas prices has caused the price of everything to rise dramatically.

If anyone thinks that a family of 4 is not poor even making upto $40,000 a year, then they don't know what they are talking about. Even at that point you will be making tough choices between which bills to pay, and you will not be able to afford nutritious real foods so that your children can reach their full potential.

[jimmydwight]

7. Outsourcing is the problem.

The way I see it, Most of the higher paying jobs are now in China, India, etc. The only thing left here is fast food, waitstaff, house cleaning. Why can't we force US companies to operate here? It would simply be a matter of penalizing them for using off shore employees. Now it is more profitable for them to hire Chinese or Indian labor than to hire locally. This must change if we are to survive as a nation.

[pampango]

11. It's all the foreigners' fault. If it wasn't for the Chinese, Indians, Canadians, Mexicans, etc., we

would be just fine, right?

Cutting taxes for the rich and corporations, weakening unions, slashing the social safety net and a horrible health care system, all have nothing to do with the increase in poverty in Ohio and other states? Reagan's ghost and his acolytes will be happy to hear this. That's kind of letting the republicans off the hook, isn't it?

If it's all the fault of outsourcing and too much trade then we can blame foreigners for our problems, wall ourselves off from the rest of the world, and enjoy our rediscovered prosperity without unions or a safety net (who needs them?), low ("government is evil") taxes and just hope we don't get sick.

[brentspeak]

19. If much of US industry hadn't moved overseas

Then, yes, we would be just fine.

[cstanleytech]

8. Woohooo!! Time for Gov. Kasich to hoist that 'Mission Accomplished' flag.

Way to go Gov. Kasich, you are doing a heck of a job.

:sarcasm:

[2Design]

9. isn't this boner's state - why did they elect someone so cruel to them ?

[Johnny Harpo]

10. Out 'Sourcing' vs. Off 'Shoring'

It is important that we note the difference.

Out-Sourcing is when a U.S. (or Ohio) company hires or contracts another U.S (or Ohio) compnay to perform work/task/projects for them.
The work is performed within the States (or state) and the information learned and money paid stays here.

Off-Shoring is whena U.S. (or Ohio) company hires or contracts with a foreign owned compnay to perform work/task/projects for them.
The work is performed outside of the U.S. (in another country) and the information learned and money paid goes there.

Consider how much of our personal information, banking/financial information, medical information etc. is stored in some computer file in India or elsewhere.

And this doesn't take into account the vast number of foreign H1B visa holders that come inside our borders every year willing to work for less then the normal wages, while they learn the internal workings of any number of our companies.

[defendandprotect]

12. Trade Agreements -- and it was clear when they passed them -- and Obama has 3 new ones!!

[pampango]

15. Except that our trade results with those countries is better than that with the rest of the world.

In 2010 our total trade with the those 17 countries was $1.115 trillion. We had a deficit of $71.1 billion (6.5% of the total).

In 2010 our total trade with the rest of the world was $2.108 trillion. We had a deficit of $574.8 billion (27.2% of the total).

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/index.html

This hardly makes a case that trade agreements are the cause of our poverty especially in light of the fact that progressive Western countries in the world have much less poverty, much more equitable distributions of income and much more trade (and trade agreements) than we have.

What the progressive countries DO have are strong unions, high and progressive taxation, an effective social safety net, better regulation of corporations and national health care. While the increase in US poverty has COINCIDED with proliferation of trade agreements, it was CAUSED by the conservative push (started under Reagan) to weaken unions, cut taxes for the rich and corporations, slash the safety net and eliminate regulations and oversight of the corporate world - all actions taken by AMERICANS targeting the welfare of other AMERICANS.

In one sense republicans have finally abandoned their historical commitment to high tariffs (the Fordney-McCumber-Coolidge Tariff of 1922 and the Smoot-Hawley-Hoover Tariff Act of 1930) and been converted to the FDR view that lower tariffs and multilateral control of trade are good for the country and world.

I wonder sometimes whether the belated conversion of republicans to FDR's viewpoint on trade has caused some to reflexively question whether FDR was right and to adopt the old republican position that tariffs are good.

"When the Republicans regained power after the war they restored the usual high (tariff) rates, with the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922. When the Great Depression hit, international trade shrank drastically. The crisis baffled the GOP, and it unwisely tried its magic one last time in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. This time it backfired, as Canada, Britain, Germany, France and other industrial countries retaliated with their own tariffs and special, bilateral trade deals. American imports and exports both went into a tailspin. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Dealers made promises about lowering tariffs on a reciprocal country-by-country basis (which they did)."

In 1934, the (Democratic) U.S. Congress, in a rare delegation of authority, passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 which authorized the executive branch to negotiate bilateral tariff reduction agreements with other countries. The prevailing view then was that trade liberalization may help stimulate economic growth. However, no one country was willing to liberalize unilaterally. Between 1934 and 1945, the executive branch (under FDR) negotiated over 32 bilateral trade liberalization agreements with other countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history#1913_to_present

[brentspeak]

20. Trade pacts = millions of jobs shipped overseas

Which then = millions more jobs, dependent on the industries shipped overseas, lost.

Which then = massive poverty.

Any questions?

[Blue_Tires]

13. The question I have is what percentage of Ohio voters blame Obama

while conveniently forgetting their teabaggy congresscritters and governor?

[OnionPatch]

14. I had to leave my hometown in Ohio 25 years ago.

I knew it was time to leave when I saw forty people in line for a couple of jobs at McDonald's. Grown men, grown women....not teenagers. I didn't want to leave, I had to. There was simply no way to make a living there. I always said I would go home someday when things got better, but they never have. :(

[sarcasmo]

16. Lowest since 1984, the billionaires are destroying the middle class, all part of the agenda.

[fascisthunter]

17. that's what happens when Republicans run a State

they destroy it...

They brought us the Great Depression, and now they seem eager to do more damage than ever before.