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YSU works with city to spur growth
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown has a poverty rate of 40.2 percent, which is sixth highest in the country among cities with a population of 65,000 or more.
That’s about 26,000 people of all ages who live below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest estimates, for 2013. The federal poverty threshold in 2013 was $11,490 annual income for an individual and $23,550 for a family of four.
“Any place where four out of 10 people live below the poverty line has major challenges to overcome,” said Marybeth Mattingly, a researcher for the Center of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University.
Youngstown just narrowly missed joining the top five of Camden, N.J., No. 1 at 42.6 percent; Flint, Mich., 41.8; Gary, Ind., 41; Detroit, 40.7; and Bloomington, Ind., 40.3.
In Mahoning County, the unemployment rate in August was 5.9 percent with 6,400 unemployed and 101,900 employed. The unemployment rate in Youngstown in August was higher at 7.7 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Wages in Youngstown also are not great, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median annual wage in the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman area is nearly $29,500 compared with Ohio’s median annual wage at $33,738.
In Mahoning County, some rely heavily on public assistance, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. In June, there were 5,275 recipients of Ohio Works First, the financial assistance portion of the state’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, who received a net amount of $912,530 in expenditures.
In the same month, 44,721 recipients in the county received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program with the average monthly payment at $122 and $5,458,432 in food coupons issued.
“The major problem of the city is a combination of a lack of jobs and a lack of employable people,” said Thomas Finnerty, associate director of Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies.
“This is a regional problem,” said Barb Ewing, the chief operating officer of the Youngstown Business Incubator, which works in partnership with the university.
Ewing said there’s a skill gap in the workforce for the technology-based businesses it helps to produce.
Bill D’Avignon, the director of Community Development Agency for Youngstown, said it would take time for the city’s economy to turn around.
“It takes a long time to diversify,” he said. “I think there is a lot of hope.”
Finnerty said the university and the city are working together to “spur economic growth” within the community with assistance from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The EDA provided a $215,000 grant last October for an economic development plan, Finnerty said.
Although a federal government shutdown delayed funding to January, the project is on schedule to be completed by next September, he said.
“The ultimate goal is to organize the community to funnel growth from expanding industries,” Finnerty said.
The plan analyzes the policies in place and whether there are enough economic incentives for companies, she said. Additionally, the plan focuses on whether area companies are marketed properly, said Sharon Woodberry, the city’s director of economic development.
“It really is a local analysis of our economy,” she said.
The economic development plan is at the research stage, said Rachel McCartney, a YSU economic development analyst who is leading the project.
“There’s a lot of things happening, as we’re planning for them to happen,” she said.
There are several categories being looked at, McCartney said. These include a cluster analysis of Mahoning and Trumbull counties that examines local strengths and weaknesses of the community. Another analysis looks at other similar Midwestern cities and its industries that Youngstown lacks, which could be overlooked opportunities.
As part of a marketing and branding effort, YSU and the city are developing an opportunity sites catalog, which highlights the potential areas that industries and businesses could tap into. There also are improvements for the quality of life by improving the look and feel of the city’s downtown area, such as its pedestrian infrastructure.
One aspiration is for the leadership from YSU and other anchor institutions throughout the city to create goals by focusing “resources to effect change,” McCartney said. “We want to have the university as much a part of this as possible.”