Three lessons from three years of policy analysis

I started working at Scioto Analysis in September of 2022, which means I am approaching the end of my third full year with the practice. When I started, I was fresh out of grad school and notably had never done any policy analysis before. As I’ve mentioned before, I graduated with a degree in statistics, from a program that had a pretty heavy academic lean to it. 

It was like going to school to learn all about the inner workings and uses of power tools, then getting a job as a carpenter. I had a deep understanding of the tools of policy analysis, but I didn’t yet know how to apply them. 

As the end of the year is approaching, I wanted to take some time to reflect on these first three years and some of the lessons I’ve learned about being a good policy analyst.

Policy analysis is about problem solving

In Eugene Bardach’s A Practical Guide to Policy Analysis, the first step on the eightfold path laid out by the author is problem definition. We start this way because we understand that the world is not currently perfect, and it is the role of the public sector to help us move towards a more perfect world. This is different from the outlook of people in my grad school program, who largely wanted to pursue statistics to further our collective understanding of the field. 

I want to be clear, I believe that what academics are doing is extremely important. We need people to push the frontiers of our knowledge and to try to improve our understanding of the world. 

However, the insights gained from academia need to be applied to the real world for them to improve outcomes for people, and that is a job not always well suited for academics themselves. When we as analysts begin with a problem that we need to solve, it gives us a different lens to approach the findings generated by academics. 

Policy analysis is client driven

An important memory I have from grad school was from a group project in my class called Statistical Consulting. Our goal was to do some analysis for a client that had a bunch of data and didn’t have the technical skills to analyze it. 

My group was a mix of masters and PhD students, and one PhD candidate was insistent that we include a plot in our presentation showing how we found the optimal penalty for our lasso regression. 

I suggested that we shouldn’t include this plot, because although it shows that our methods were valid, it didn’t mean anything to the client. I ended up being overruled by the group, and when we eventually gave our presentation we got the feedback that our presentation was too technical and we should have focused more on the results. 

That kind of information is better suited to an appendix. Those that want to replicate that work or anyone who wants to ensure that we are checking all the necessary technical boxes should have access to that, but the information that matters is what is going to help someone make a better decision, and super technical things don’t make the cut.

Policy analysis should be collaborative

One of the main reasons I was drawn to statistics in the first place was I could not make a decision about what interested me the most. I generally like learning about different topics, and I thought that statistics was broad enough that it could enable me to do research on all sorts of topics, from biology to political science. 

Policy analysis has a similar broad range of applications. My first ever project with Scioto Analysis looked at water quality in Ohio. The second project looked at the Genuine Progress Indicator, a broad economic replacement for Gross Domestic Product.

While this breadth of subject matter satisfies my desire to learn about different topics, it also largely means I’m not an expert in the thing I’m analyzing. I’m an expert in statistics and how to do policy analysis, but we often benefit from talking to people with more subject matter expertise. 

Fortunately for us at Scioto, many of our clients are subject matter experts who are looking for assistance with policy analysis and statistics. That naturally leads to a collaborative process which leads to a better final product. When this doesn’t happen though, it is often smart to seek out people with subject matter expertise to help provide context.

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It’s an exciting time in the world of policy analysis. The availability of good data and the abundance of statistical tools is making it more accessible than ever. The increased supply of analysis is being met with a rising demand, which is leading to better decisions being made by policymakers at all levels of government. At Scioto Analysis, we’re going to keep searching for ways to improve our analysis, as well as ways to get our information to policymakers more easily.

Survey: Majority of Ohio economists agree employment opportunities are driving Ohio’s population growth trend.

In a survey released this morning by Scioto Analysis, 20 of 23 economists agreed that employment opportunities are a major driver of Ohio's current population growth trend. 

The population growth rate in Ohio is currently declining. According to the Ohio Department of Development, the state is expected to lose more than 675,000 people by 2050. By 2030 alone, Ohio is expected to drop from the seventh most populous state to the ninth.

Respondents voiced opinions that employment opportunities affect net migration into Ohio and out of the state. As Kathryn Wilson of Kent State University noted, “Employment opportunities are a contributor on both sides of the ledger. Areas around Columbus that are seeing growth in population are also seeing job growth. Other areas of the state with less job growth are seeing a net migration out of people.”

A majority of economists agreed that state-level decisions on social policy issues are a major contributor to Ohio’s current population growth trend, with 14 of 23 economists agreeing. According to Will Georgic of Ohio Wesleyan University, “If you think of social policy issues as non-market amenities, and if you think that recent state-level decisions have worsened the quality of these non-market amenities, then following a Rosen-Roback type model could support the belief that these decisions are contributing to the State's current population trend.” David Brasington of the University of Cincinnati disagreed with this opinion about social policy issues, suggesting that “Not many people pick a place to live based on social policy. Jobs, climate, geography, quality of life all matter more.”

Opinions on if cost of living is a major contributor to Ohio's current population growth trend were more mixed across economists. Eight economists agreed that cost of living is a major contributor to Ohio’s current population growth trend, eleven economists disagreed, and three economists were uncertain. Multiple economists agree that the relationship between cost of living and Ohio’s current population growth trend may run the other direction. Curtis Reynolds of Kent State University writes, “Cost of living is quite low in most parts of Ohio compared to many other areas of the country but that is partly driven by lack of pressure on the demand side due to declining population.”

The Ohio Economic Experts Panel is a panel of over 30 Ohio Economists from over 30 Ohio higher educational institutions conducted by Scioto Analysis. The goal of the Ohio Economic Experts Panel is to promote better policy outcomes by providing policymakers, policy influencers, and the public with the informed opinions of Ohio’s leading economists. Individual responses to all surveys can be found here.

What we learned in 2025: 12 Scioto Analysis studies that changed how we think about public policy

2025 is almost in the books! This was Scioto Analysis’s busiest year yet. We released twelve studies to the public this year and we’re very close to releasing a thirteenth before the year ends. Let’s take a look at these twelve studies and what we learned throughout the year.

In January, Scioto Analysis released its first study of the year, a qualitative study of economic barriers faced by immigrants and new Americans in central Ohio. In this study, we interviewed nearly 50 people in central Ohio who are either immigrants or who support immigrants in the region. This was timely due to the election that was occurring while we were doing these interviews and how immigration took center stage as a policy issue. One of the biggest things I learned from this study was the importance of language learning. Person after person told us that immigrants wanted to learn English and were looking for more opportunities to learn it because the resources in central Ohio for learning English do not meet the demand for language learning.

Later that month, we released a study we conducted on the economic impact of cycling and trails in Iowa. In this study, we surveyed over 2,500 cyclists across the state and used those surveys along with data from People for Bikes, the Census Bureau, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to estimate how cycling impacts the state economy and health of Iowans. We found that cycling contributes about $1.4 billion to the state economy every year, saves millions of dollars in health care costs, and prevents hundreds of tons of carbon emissions every year.

In March, we released a cost-benefit analysis conducted by then intern Jacob Strang on wildlife crossings. Wildlife crossings are bridges or underpasses built to help wildlife cross busy road corridors and to reduce collisions with vehicles. I can honestly say that to date, this was the most impressive cost-benefit analysis Scioto Analysis had done, with Jacob monetizing impacts that ranged from construction and maintenance costs to vehicle damage and value of lives saved to ecosystem services and the value of deer, elk, and moose lives.

Later that month, we released a cost-benefit analysis on Minnesota’s child tax credit conducted by policy analyst Michael Hartnett. Minnesota has one of the most generous and progressive child tax credits in the country so we took the model researchers at Columbia University used to win the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis’s Best Journal Article of the Year Award to analyze the Minnesota child tax credit. We found investment in child tax credits will lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in higher labor market earnings and lower crime costs due to children having more household resources that put them on a better lifetime trajectory.

In April, we released a cost-benefit analysis on universal prekindergarten conducted by intern Omar Rangel. States like Georgia, Oklahoma, and West Virginia all have universal prekindergarten programs, so in this study, Omar analyzed what a universal prekindergarten program would look like in Ohio. He estimated a universal prekindergarten would lead to thousands more children enrolled in prekindergarten programs, which would lead to higher labor market earnings for these children down the road.

In May, we released the first of a series of studies we are doing on Oklahoma’s minimum wage, this one focused on housing affordability. In June of 2026, Oklahoma voters will cast their ballots to decide whether to raise their state minimum wage from the federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $15. In this analysis, we simulated wages at the household level to estimate that the change could pull as many as 40,000 Oklahoma households above the level of being housing cost burdened.

In September, we released the next report in that series, this time on public safety and the minimum wage. Poverty and crime are connected to each other, so policies that can reduce income stress on households can lead to lower crime rates. Using evidence of interaction between minimum wage changes and crime we estimated a $15 minimum wage in Oklahoma would lead to 7,000 fewer crimes per year, including 55 fewer homicides.

Later that month, we released a cost-benefit analysis by our intern Van Woodcock on the Move to Prosper program. This is a program that provides rental assistance and counseling support to move people from low-mobility into high-mobility neighborhoods. We estimated expanding the program would lead to over $100 million in increased future earnings for young children in households involved with the program.

In October, we released a cost-benefit analysis on another universal program: school meals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Department of Agriculture made the national school lunch program universal for all schools across the country. Since that national program expired, a number of states adopted state universal school meal programs. Our policy analyst Emily Cantrell estimated a universal school meal program for Ohio would lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in increased future earnings at the same time that it reduced health care costs due to obesity and saved parents time preparing meals for their children.

In December, we released a rash of studies. First came the third in our series of studies on the minimum wage in Oklahoma, this time on health. Families with higher incomes have more access to health resources and the health outcomes that come with that. Using our microsimulation model, we estimated a higher minimum wage for Oklahoma would save about 400 lives every year, including 240 infants.

Next came our cost-benefit analysis on a cigarette tax for Ohio by our intern Seneca Baldi. In January, Governor Mike DeWine proposed an increase in Ohio’s per-pack cigarette tax, a proposal that the Ohio House cut out of the state budget. Using the best available data of the impact of price on teenage consumption, Seneca estimated the cigarette tax would be effective at reducing teenage smoking initiation, leading to billions of dollars in benefits to teenagers who never begin smoking.

Our most recent study was a study we released with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation on energy permitting in Ohio. While energy permitting processes allow for community input into energy projects, they sometimes are used by competitors of an energy project to slow or even prevent energy projects from being approved. We found projects pulled from the energy production queue cost Ohio 9,000 megawatts of energy production, $440 million in capital investment, thousands of jobs, and millions of dollars in tax revenue each year.

Before the year ends, we plan to publish a report on home visiting in Ohio. It has been a great year and I’m looking forward to an even better year in 2026!

What is stopping development of solar and wind energy in Ohio?

Last year, I was called to testify at a hearing of the Ohio Power Siting Board on a plan to develop a large solar farm in Knox County.

My firm Scioto Analysis was asked to make some estimates about the cost of climate change for local governments in Knox County and how the solar project could help make up for these costs in the long run.

I was surprised to see the level of scrutiny this project was undergoing.

Installation of a large, clean power project that will bring plentiful, low-cost energy is not something that I would generally expect to be controversial.

But grassroots groups had organized against the project, making dubious claims about environmental impacts and arguing that the project would be “unsightly.”

It has always seemed strange to me that neighbors can have so much of a say in what people do with their land.

If a farmer finds it is more profitable to install solar panels than to use land for soybeans, why can their neighbors go to state boards and argue against that use of their land?

The fundamental argument for this sort of community input in these sorts of projects is that energy developments can have external impacts on community members.

If you build a coal-fire power plant next door and upwind of an elementary school, you expose children on the playground to PM2.5 and NOx emissions, which can cause breathing problems and in extreme cases, death.

Community input helps alert policymakers to these sorts of problems and improve energy projects for the community they are located in.

On the other hand, there is such thing as “too much community input.”

If bad actors abuse the system, the community input system ends up being a tool for slowing or even killing projects.

The Icebreaker Wind offshore wind project in Lake Erie is one example of this. It has dealt with years of delays, mainly at the behest of people who have aesthetic opposition to wind turbines.

This past week, Scioto Analysis released a report with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation on energy permitting in Ohio.

In the face of growing interest in Ohio as a data center hub, many people are worried about Ohio’s ability to keep up with the energy needs associated with these projects.

An efficient energy permitting process is a key to making sure enough energy is available to continue to have these sorts of centers in the state without subjecting the state to soaring energy costs.

Using data from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories on energy projects in the development queue, we estimated that the state of Ohio loses out on 9,000 megawatts of energy projects per year due to developers withdrawing their projects.

This amounts to about $440 million in lost investment every year, 5,400 fewer jobs, and millions of dollars in lost tax revenue.

There needs to be space for community input. But if the state of Ohio is going to keep up with energy needs and keep energy prices from skyrocketing, it means balancing those needs with the need for energy supply.

Making sure the process serves the needs of ratepayers as much as it serves the needs of residents who find solar panels and wind turbines “unsightly” is paramount to an effective system.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.

The importance of the Census Bureau’s race data

At the beginning of this year, I wrote a blog post talking about the changes that the Trump Administration was making to publicly available data. Going back and reading this blog, it’s interesting to see which of my fears were warranted and in what cases I was being reactionary to what was a very uncertain time where data was being removed seemingly at random. 

The good news is that we still have access to a lot of data. The 2024 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System is available for download thanks to a court order, the Census Bureau has released 2024 American Community Survey Data and there is a scheduled release date for the 5-year estimates. Additionally, the team over at IPUMS is working to get the individual microdata ready for release!

Not everything has been smooth however. We asked our Ohio Economic Experts Panel about the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner and they agreed that reduced trust in that organization would hurt Ohio’s economy. However, because of the government shutdown, the BLS has said they won’t be releasing some employment data from October. While these events might not be related, this does mean that we don’t have all of the federal data we are used to having.

Near the end of my blog post about public data, I mentioned that in 2024 the Census Bureau was going to be changing the way they collect race data by adding categories for Middle Eastern/North African, as well as adding Hispanic as a race instead of asking a separate ethnicity question. 

Recently, NPR reported that the current Census Bureau is reviewing those changes, opening the door for them to be reversed. While this doesn't necessarily mean that these standards will be undone, it seems likely based on the administration's past track record with data pertaining to race, gender, etc. that it will.

I want to note here that how we collect race data is not an easy decision. Any time we try to categorize people into neat boxes we invariably have to make assumptions and decisions that harm the overall quality of the data. However, some options are better than others. 

The old way the Census collected race data was worse than the 2024 standard. The only argument that I can think of against it is that changing that question makes comparisons to past years of data more difficult, but I think the improved understanding of the present and future far outweighs those costs. 

I don't even think it would be too difficult to compare to previous years if you take the time to look at the microdata. WIth a couple of assumptions about how people would be classified under the old system, you could seemingly reconstruct those estimates and get those backward comparisons. It wouldn’t be perfect, but I bet that if dedicated researchers took their time they could produce fairly accurate estimates. 

While I don’t expect this to happen, it has crossed my mind that a review of the race standard might mean some other change as opposed to a revision back to the previous rule. The worst-case scenario would be if the Census Bureau decided to not ask a question about race and ethnicity at all. As I said before, there is no “right” way to collect race data. However, we would all be worse off if a change diminished our understanding of race in this country. 

The 2030 census is still a long way away. However, projects that big and ambitious require immense amounts of planning and preparation. Decisions made now about the survey will have major ramifications that we will feel for a very long time. I hope that the Census Bureau’s review doesn’t undo this particular change. It might not be perfect, but it’s better than what we had before.

Original Analysis: Energy Permitting in Ohio

This week, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation released an analysis conducted by Scioto Analysis on Ohio’s energy permitting process. This analysis focused on the impacts of the energy permitting process on energy supply, economic growth, and development of Ohio’s energy infrastructure.

Key findings from the report include the following: 

• $440 million in capital investment is lost every year due to energy projects withdrawing from the queue.

• This leads to 5,400 fewer jobs in Ohio every year, including 2,600 high-paying construction roles.

• 9,000 Megawatts of potential power generation have been withdrawn each year since 2016.

• $3.2 - $4.3 Million in state income tax revenue are lost annually due to withdrawn projects.

“When permitting is an excessive burden to developers, Ohio loses solar, wind, and other energy projects to other states,” said Scioto Analysis Principal Rob Moore, “this leads to less energy supply and higher energy costs for Ohio ratepayers.”

The report also includes several recommendations for improving the permitting process in Ohio, including enforcing statutory timelines, expanding accelerated reviews, and modernizing community engagement.

“Energy permitting in Ohio is not perfect, but with some changes, the system could be improved, more projects could get online faster, and Ohio can avoid the energy crunch that other parts of the country are already seeing,” said Moore.

Vapes Aren’t the Only Reason Teens are Smoking Less: They’re Consuming Less Tobacco Overall

Just fifteen years ago, it was common for teenagers to sneak out during school to smoke cigarettes nearby. Today, with the rise of vaping, cigarettes have nearly disappeared for high school-age students. Rather than leaving school to smoke, high schoolers now vape in the bathrooms, halls, and sometimes in class. In the analysis I am currently doing on cigarette taxes in Ohio, this cultural change matters.

To estimate the effects of an increase in Ohio’s cigarette excise tax, we need to know how the tax will affect teenagers, both current smokers and those who will become smokers later in life. Ohio high school and especially middle school smoking data is somewhat limited in terms of the years it is available. However, like national and state trends, it is clear that cigarette smoking is declining (FDA). In a 2023 survey, 1.5% of middle schoolers and 3.6% of high schoolers reported smoking a cigarette in the last 30 days. 

We estimated smoking prevalence in 2026 to better predict the impacts of the cigarette tax for our cost-benefit analysis. Since the state only offers three data points for smoking in middle schools through the Youth Tobacco Survey, our prediction might be optimistic. Mapping a linear trendline using past data on smoking rates, we estimate that the middle school smoking rate would be negative in 2026, which means nearly no middle school students in Ohio will be smokers next year. High school smoking data collected through the same survey stretches back much further, but a six year gap between 2013 and 2019 leaves much to the imagination about how the prevalence fell 10.2 percentage points. Using an exponential decay trendline, we estimate that high school smoking will be only 2% in 2026. 

So why has youth cigarette smoking fallen so much? Was the sharp drop in smoking in 2019 caused by increasing the legal tobacco purchase age to 21 (FDA)? Is it thanks to public health campaigns like the “Real Cost” or “Truth” which have increased anti-smoking campaigns’ visibility to over 75% of middle and high school students (FDA)? Or is it merely youth transitioning away from cigarettes towards the potentially safer, less-studied vaping as an alternative (Johns Hopkins)?

Nationally, 5.9% of middle and high school (3.5% of middle school and 7.8% of high school) students reported current e-cigarette usage while 1.4% smoked cigarettes in 2024. Nicotine pouches are more popular nationally than cigarettes, with 1.8% of teens using them currently in 2024. In Ohio, 6.4% of middle school and 18.8% of high schoolers vaped once in the past 30 days in 2023, according to the Youth Tobacco Survey. This data is a year behind the national data and is likely to have fallen considering state and national trends the years prior. Higher youth e-cigarette usage trends in Ohio complement higher youth and adult cigarette smoking trends as well. Comparatively, 1.5% of middle schoolers and 3.6% of high schoolers smoked cigarettes in the last 30 days in 2023. 

Teen vaping is definitely a problem for public health advocates. Its safety is uncertain, it is more easily marketed towards teenagers than smoking, and it can be easier to hide than cigarettes. Although vaping was sold as a safer alternative to smoking, the National Institute of Drug Abuse is skeptical of that claim. Vapes contain a variety of chemicals and may contain carcinogens or toxic metals. Many contain more nicotine than cigarettes, making them more addictive, which is compounded by teens using vapes more frequently than they used to smoke cigarettes. They also smell less potent, making them easier to hide, which has prompted some schools to install vaping detectors in the bathrooms.

But youth cigarette smoking isn’t the only downward trend: youth vaping is falling as well. Although the prevalence is higher than cigarette smoking, teens seem to be reducing their tobacco or nicotine consumption in general. This trend is true in Ohio as well. 

So is vaping causing the fall in smoking by replacing cigarettes, or are these two trends a coincidence complemented by an overall trend downward in youth tobacco use?

A 2025 study on smoking and vaping trends from 1997 to 2020 found that the increase in vaping in the United States was independent of the fall in cigarette smoking. A 2017 meta-analysis, on the other hand, found a strong relationship between initial e-cigarette use and subsequent cigarette smoking initiation. A 2018 study determined that electronic cigarettes have some causal relationship with cigarette smoking but that it is negligible in the face of such a strong decline in smoking. So it’s possible that vaping could actually keep smoking around by introducing teens to tobacco usage, but that overall, it is unlikely to be the reason for the decline in smoking.

Since tobacco use among teens is at its lowest recorded levels ever, according to 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) data, it is likely that there are external factors at play besides increased e-cigarette usage. The CDC attributes the decline to prevention strategies like price increases, mass media education campaigns targeted at youth about the negative health effects, and smoke-free policies which include e-cigarette usage. 

The CDC also says that almost all tobacco use begins in adolescence, citing 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes every day as having tried smoking by age 18. Most health problems from smoking develop later in life. If efforts can be maintained to reduce overall youth tobacco use, we have the chance to greatly limit adult use and the accompanying health problems. 

So yes, children are substituting away from cigarette smoking to vaping. But no, that is not the only reason children are smoking less than they used to. Tobacco use in general has declined due to a range of policy and cultural factors. This will mean longer lives and new opportunities for children later in life, which is something that both health analysts and economists should be happy about.

Scioto Analysis Releases Cost-Benefit Analysis of Raising the Ohio State Cigarette Tax

This morning, Scioto Analysis published a cost-benefit analysis on the potential impacts of raising Ohio’s cigarette tax by $1.50 per pack, from $1.60 to $3.10, on Ohio’s economy. An increase of this size was proposed in Governor DeWine’s Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Governor’s Executive Budget in light of Ohio’s smoking rate, which is one of the highest in the country.

In this report, analysts estimate that the increase would generate $18.9 billion in social benefits and $816 million in social costs. Many of the associated health gains are expected to accrue over the next eight decades. They estimate that the benefits would be: 

• $18 billion in health benefits to teenagers who quit and never start smoking, discounted to present-day value

• $100 million in environmental savings through reduced pollution and fires caused by smoking

• $69 million in healthcare savings for nonsmokers who pay into pooled-risk programs like Medicaid and life insurance

• $66 million in reduced healthcare and productivity costs to employers who employ smokers

• $550,000 in reduced costs of secondhand smoke to a smokers’ family members

Analysts' estimates involve several sources of uncertainty, so they examine how changes in key inputs affect the results through sensitivity analyses. After running 10,000 simulations of potential scenarios of costs and benefits, analysts estimate the program will generate $5 to $95 in benefits for every $1 in costs. The net present value of benefits and costs is estimated to be between $4 and $73 billion. These results suggest substantial variation in potential outcomes but indicate that the benefits are likely to be positive overall.

This study is the latest in a series of cost-benefit analyses conducted by Scioto Analysis to demonstrate the use of cost-benefit analysis to analyze state policies. Past cost-benefit analyses and other analyses can be found here.

The economics of plowing streets

As a Minnesotan, I love the winter. To enjoy living in a place that can be this inhospitable, you have to find ways to enjoy being outside when it's cold. For me, that usually means being on the ice, whether it's skating or playing broomball. 

One thing I don’t like about Minnesota is how much snow impacts my experience on the roads. 

The city of Saint Paul has notoriously bad plowing, particularly on smaller side streets in residential neighborhoods. Growing up here, I can’t remember a winter where the street outside my parents’ home was ever visible in the middle of winter. From the time the first major snowstorm hit until the snowmelt during the spring, that street had an impenetrable layer of snow. Saint Paul residents get especially worked up about this issue because our neighbors in Minneapolis seem to have figured out how to effectively plow their streets.

As we begin another winter of poorly plowed roads, the question came across my mind: how much is it worth to have well plowed roads? 

I understand that for the city of Saint Paul to improve their road plowing system there would be costs. But do we know whether or not it would be worth it?

I did a little bit of cursory research, and I came across this report from 2014 about the lost economic activity that results from a snowstorm. In one of their key takeaways from their executive summary, the authors note “The economic impact of snow-related closures far exceeds the cost of timely snow removal. Although states and localities may be hesitant to expend significant upfront resources in the short-term, the long-term payoff more than justifies the expense.”

For Minnesota, the authors estimate that a major snowstorm would cost the state over $167 million (~ $232 adjusting for inflation) in lost economic activity. This report is looking at situations where conditions are so bad that stores aren’t open, which clearly have negative economic consequences. To Saint Paul’s credit, when major snow storms happen they do a good job of getting major roads open quickly. Businesses rarely have to stay closed as a result.

Unfortunately, this report doesn’t really cover the costs associated with bad plowing of smaller streets. How much economic activity is lost because people don’t want to leave their houses when it’s annoying to go a few blocks on poorly plowed roads to get to the main streets? How much longer are people’s commutes every day? 

Let’s do some back of the envelope math:

Say a person commutes every weekday. There are 13 weeks between the start of December this year and the last week of February which adds up to 65 commutes. If the poor road conditions add five minutes each direction, that adds up to over 10 additional hours of commuting over the main winter months. Maybe it’s unrealistic to think that better plowing could save that much time per commuter, but it still adds up quickly. 

I would love to see a more detailed analysis of how city plowing policies impact the economy. Maybe it would be possible using something like the American Time Use Survey if there was some sort of natural experiment where a city changed their plowing methods. Plowing is an important public service, and it would be good to know exactly how much value it provides.

Is Ohio still affordable?

According to politicians across the spectrum, there is currently an affordability crisis in the United States. Consumer prices across most categories of goods and services continue to rise month to month, though they have slowed since the height of inflation in 2022. The cost of housing is one of the biggest factors driving increases in cost of living across the country, with a median of 31% of household income for renters being spent on rent and a median of 21% of household income for homeowners being spent on mortgages in 2024. 

As housing prices continue to rise in 2025, more people are falling behind on paying their utility bills. Between 2024 to 2025, annual past due balances to utility companies increased by 9.7%, while monthly energy bills increased by 12%. If renters and homeowners hope to follow the age-old guideline of spending no more than 30% of income on housing–a threshold the median renter already exceeds–income must follow suit and rise alongside the cost of living.

In Ohio, the cost of living continues to rise as well, though there may be some upside compared to the nation as a whole. To afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in 2025, an Ohio resident must make at least $22.51 an hour working full-time, an 8% increase from last year. Simultaneously, the average Ohio renter earns just $18.62 an hour, and homelessness in Ohio has risen by 3% since 2024 to 11,759 people.

In Ohio, the cost of living continues to rise as well, though there may be some upside compared to the nation as a whole. To afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in 2025, an Ohio resident must make at least $22.51 an hour working full-time, an 8% increase from last year. Simultaneously, the average Ohio renter earns just $18.62 an hour, and homelessness in Ohio has risen by 3% since 2024 to 11,759 people.

If home prices are so much lower in Ohio than most of the United States, how do actual monthly housing costs compare? We can use data from IPUMS, a database that provides American Community Survey microdata, to answer this question. In 2023, the median gross rent including utilities across the United States was about $1,448 per month. How do monthly housing costs in Ohio compare to the nation as a whole?

Compared to the national average, monthly housing costs across eight of the largest counties in Ohio are all lower than the national average. My economic intuition would be that Ohio’s relatively low cost of housing compared to the national average, especially in major cities such as Cleveland (Cuyahoga County), Cincinnati (Hamilton County), or Columbus (Franklin County), would incentivize workers and families nationwide to move into Ohio. On housing alone, the median renter could save $2,400 to $4,800 per year, all while still living near a major city. 

However, data from the Census Bureau tells us the opposite story: between 2020 to 2024, Ohio experienced a negative net migration rate, ranking 39th out of net domestic migration rates across all 50 states. If states like Ohio are so much cheaper in a time of an affordability crisis, why aren’t people moving to them?

One possible explanation could be that lower housing costs are a facade for higher commuter costs. In 2024, a typical household in Ohio spent about 27% of their yearly income on transportation costs, mostly from car ownership, which is 5 percentage points higher than the national average and 12 percentage points higher than the recommended threshold of affordability. In Ohio, the median household income in 2024 was $72,212. Let’s say an average household moves from an average city in the United States to a city with lower housing costs in Ohio. They may see up to $4,800 dollars back in their pockets from the reduced cost of housing, but they’ll also be spending around $3,600 more per year on transportation costs.

There are a range of other price differences that impact affordability across the United States. For example, some people live in food deserts–areas where access to grocery stores and nutritious food may be limited. In these cases, consumers may have to choose between paying low prices for food or getting their proper nutrition. Another example is childcare affordability: some states, like Ohio, have far fewer subsidies for public childcare, making the cost of childcare a larger burden on household budgets. Or, some states and municipalities could have lower or higher income tax, sales tax, or property tax. In many cases, affordability differences like these muddy the waters of where actually is affordable in the United States– and which cities are the most affordable for certain demographics.

The regional price parity index from the Bureau of Economic Analysis provides reliable estimates of the differences in cost-of-living across different states. States like Arkansas, Mississippi, and South Dakota are among the most affordable, while states like California, New Jersey, and Hawaii are among the most expensive. 

Regardless of how cost-of-living differences look statewide, the nuances of how an individual family spends their money are an important factor in how affordable or costly living in a particular city is. And we haven’t even touched on the opposite side of the equation here: income. No matter how affordable a state is, employment opportunities with high incomes will drive migration trends as much or even more than affordability. That is why Arkansas, Mississippi, and Ohio have not become magnets for migration: despite affordability advantages for these states over coastal states, employment is still king when it comes to the economics of migration.