Report: Recession hits hard in Valley

Trumbull County had one of the largest job losses in the state over three years.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
The recession that began in 2000 has been an economic disaster for the state and for the Mahoning Valley, according to a report released this month by an anti-poverty agency.
Ohio lost 4.3 percent of its jobs, for a total of 233,488 jobs lost between the second quarter of 2000 and the same quarter in 2003, the study said. Ohio's rate of job loss over that period was almost three times the national figure of 1.5 percent, the report added.
The combined loss over that period in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties was 20,705 jobs, according to the report titled "2004 -- The State of Poverty in Ohio." The report was produced by the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland, the community action agency serving Cuyahoga County, on behalf of the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies.
"Levels of poverty and human suffering have soared as jobs and paychecks disappeared across the state in massive numbers," according to a news release accompanying the study.
Totals for area counties
Trumbull County, which lost 10,453 jobs over the three years, was among six counties in the state that lost the largest numbers of jobs, ranking behind Cuyahoga, Hamilton, Franklin, Montgomery and Lucas counties, respectively. Mahoning County, which lost 8,464 jobs, was in a group of six counties that lost more than 5,000 jobs each. Columbiana County lost 1,788.
"Most of the jobs were manufacturing or manufacturing-related jobs," John Russo, labor studies coordinator at Youngstown State University, said of the lost positions. "We continue to suffer the decline as a result of international competition and the general outsourcing of jobs in the country itself," he explained.
"There are additional job losses occurring as manufacturing jobs are lost because people don't have any disposable income to spend," in retail and service industries, he said.
Although the recession has technically ended for the nation as a whole, Ohio remained in recession early this year, as shown by weekly job loss figures through January, the report said.
Decline is slowing
Having endured 20 years of economic decline, the Mahoning Valley is experiencing a slowing of the rate of decline, but the recession here isn't over, Russo said. Call-center jobs are being outsourced to India and elsewhere, and the number of jobs at General Motors in Lordstown will decline significantly because of modular production methods, he said.
The study said joblessness and poverty rate statistics from the 2000 Census, taken early in 2000 before the recession began, are obsolete. It also says the census undercounted people, especially in urban centers, such as Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Youngstown. The study estimates the census undercounted poor children in Mahoning County by more than 1,200.
The report also said the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has declined 40 percent since 1968, to the point where a full-time, year-round minimum wage job leaves the typical Ohio family at only 70 percent of the federal poverty level. It also noted that the state continues to enforce the three-year limit on cash welfare benefits, even during the recession.
Emergency measures
The report recommends a series of emergency measures in Ohio:
*Income assistance to families of jobless people should be a top public policy priority.
*An earned income tax credit, similar to the federal one, should be put on Ohio's state income tax returns.
*The erosion of the purchasing power of the minimum wage should stop.
*The Head Start preschool program, and the nutritional and health services that go with it, should not be cut.
*Ohio should provide more tax incentives and credits to corporations that assist nonprofit agencies serving needy people.
*The state should prevent unemployment through increased retraining of workers for new jobs that may replace lost positions.
"I think, increasingly, you're going to see some protections for fair trade, instead of free trade, because the current trade policy is not helping us at all," Russo concluded.