Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Ohio is losing ground, and Ohioans individually are slipping economically from the top half to the bottom half of the nation.

``But the bottom line is: Our percentage growth is below the national average,'' Mark Schweitzer, an assistant vice president and economist at the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank said.

In 2004, Ohio was one of seven states trailing the national average in economic recovery from the recession early in the decade. Only Nebraska, Michigan and Louisiana experienced less growth.

[T]wo [causes] have echoed across the state for years: Job losses in the high-paying manufacturing sector are dragging down income levels, and below-average investment in higher education is preventing Ohio from finding new avenues of growth.

Another factor is that Ohio has an aging population, and its young people are leaving.

Census figures show that Ohio lost a larger share of its core work force in the 1990s -- 146,000 people aged 20 to 54 -- than any other state. Nearly three-quarters of the losses were members of Generation X, younger workers born between 1966 and 1980.