(The Center Square) – A new report from the American Legislative Affairs Council dubbed Ohio 15th in its rankings of rich and poor states.
Though the state has fallen in GDP and non-farm payroll employment in recent years, ALEC – A conservative policy organization – cites fiscally friendly legislation to back the determination.
Employment, GDP, and domestic migration – which has been a cumulative loss over the past decade despite a recent uptick – place the state 34th in economic performance.
Nevertheless, Ohio’s trend toward decreasing tax burdens has earned it high marks from the organization.
Trends show big changes in the state benefitting corporations and the state’s wealthiest citizens. Since 2008, the top marginal corporate income tax rate has fallen from 10.5% to 3.64%, while the top marginal personal income tax has fallen from 8.87% to 7.5%.
Both property tax and sales tax burdens have decreased over the same time, according to ALEC.
Meanwhile, the 2013 elimination of estate taxes, which require heirs to pay taxes on inherited wealth, moved the state from 50th to 1st by the organization’s metrics. Another binary measure included in the report is right-to-work. Ohio’s protection of unions puts it at 50th.
Minimum wage, another key issue for labor, is at $11 per hour, $3.75 above the federal minimum wage. ALEC ranks Ohio at 23rd for this figure. Utah, which the organization ranked at richest in the nation, sits its minimum wage at the federal bottom.
MIT’s living wage calculator sets the wage required for single Ohioans without children to support themselves at $21.
Other state measures which notably depart from ALEC include ALICE, or the measure of families who are “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed,” frequently referred to as “the working poor.” The designation employed by the United Way seeks to identify those families whose earnings fall above the federal poverty level yet remain financially insecure.
According to the United Way, 39% of households in Ohio fell below the ALICE threshold in 2023. The minimum survival budget for a single Ohioan without children per the United Way comes in at a minimum monthly income of $2,241 or $13.45 per hour.
The organization shows an uptick in households which fall into the ALICE category, as of 2023.
Meanwhile, the number of households below the poverty line has remained steady, indicating that new members of the “working poor” are largely moving downward from more stable economic ground rather than up from poverty.
