Jobless rate likely to hit record

COLUMBUS DISPATCH

COLUMBUS — Though Ohio unemployment climbed to 10.8 percent in May — double the monthly rate when Gov. Ted Strickland took office in 2007 – record joblessness is ahead, state legislators were warned this month.

In fact, the state unemployment rate may not start dropping until at least a year from now.

In testimony to a committee of state lawmakers June 11, state Budget Director Pari Sabety said unemployment in Ohio could peak at 11.5 percent late next year or early 2011.

In a worst-case recession, the jobless rate could hit a record 15.4 percent in 2011, Sabety said, basing her testimony on national forecasts by Moody’s Investors Service.

But George Vredeveld, professor of economics at the University of Cincinnati, said there are thousands if not millions of variables that could push the monthly rate up or down.

“I don’t know how people can go out like this and make forecasts,’’ he said Friday, noting that the impact of federal stimulus money coming to Ohio can’t even be factored in yet.

Ohio unemployment hit an all-time high of 13.8 percent in December 1982 and January 1983.

Comparable monthly statistics are available only back to 1970.

When Strickland took office in January 2007, the unemployment rate was 5.3 percent. The Democrat is up for re-election next year.

“Ohio has lost nearly 300,000 jobs on Ted Strickland’s watch,” said Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine of Fairborn. “He promised to turn around Ohio’s economy if we elected him governor, and he failed.”

Amanda Wurst, Strickland’s spokewoman, said the governor has faced the worst national economy since the Great Depression.

“It’s time to work together to meet those challenges head-on and avoid letting politics become a distraction from these important efforts,” she said.

There’s a glimmer in good news in reading jobless rates, Vredeveld said.

The UC professor said unemployment is “a trailing indictor,” meaning the monthly rates can continue to look bad even as the economy turns around.

“Unemployment is one of the last things to turn around,” the UC professor said.