Report: nearly half of Ohio households financially insecure

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Nearly half of all Ohio households are in a persistent state of financial insecurity, with little or no savings to cover emergencies, according to a report by the nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development.

CFED’s 2014 “Assets & Opportunity Scorecard” found that 44.7 percent of Ohioans are “liquid asset poor,” lacking savings to pay for basic expenses for three months in the case of a crisis such as a job loss or medical emergency. That was a slight increase from last year’s level of 43.2 percent.

The state’s liquid-asset poor include a majority of those living below the federal poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four and 24 percent of households earning between $50,881 and $80,952 per year, CFED found.

Though Ohio ranked 36th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in residents’ financial security, it ranked 17th in terms of policies designed to help residents to achieve financial security.

Ohio was among the top-ranking states in policies geared toward developing financial assets and income, business and jobs, housing and homeownership and health care, the report found.

“Ohio took a step in the right direction in 2013 by enacting a state Earned Income Tax Credit,” Kalitha Williams, policy liaison for asset building at Policy Matters Ohio, said in a statement. “Making the new EITC refundable, boosting it to 10 percent of the federal credit and removing other restrictions would bring much-needed balance to Ohio’s tax system.”

The CFED report also found that college debt for graduating students increased 8 percent to $29,400 in 2012, and the percentage of employees participating in employer-provided retirement plans declined.