2024 has been an eventful year in the public policy world, and has been Scioto Analysis’s busiest year to date. We have worked on a range of different public policy topics in the tax and budget, health and human services, and energy and environment sectors throughout the year. I wanted to share information on six of the studies that I am most proud of this year, so if you don’t expectantly wait for every new Scioto Analysis release, this is a great way for you to get caught up!
Ohio Poverty Measure
In April, Scioto Analysis released its second iteration of the Ohio Poverty Measure, an estimate of the extent and quality of poverty in Ohio. This methodology is very similar to the methodology used in the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which improves on the Official Poverty Measure by tying thresholds to a wider range of goods than just food, considering taxes and public support and their impacts on poverty, and making geographic adjustments for cost of living. The Ohio Poverty Measure gives a more fine-grained estimate of poverty by using American Community Survey data, which surveys a larger number of people than the Supplemental Poverty Measure’s Current Population Survey.
This study estimated that 8.7% Ohioans lived in poverty in 2021. It also estimated that about a quarter of a million Ohioans were lifted out of poverty by Social Security that year and that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reduced poverty in the state by two percentage points. It also highlighted severe disparities: Black Ohioans are 75% more likely to be in poverty than white Ohioans and residents living in urban and Appalachian communities were much more likely to be in poverty than those living in suburban communities.
Subjective Well-Being in Ohio
Over the past six years, Scioto Analysis has been conducting a multiyear research project on well-being in Ohio. We have looked at well-being from an economic perspective, the extent of poverty and inequality in the state, and human development as measured by income, education, and health of the population.
Earlier this year, we worked with a group of students at Ohio State University’s Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainability who distributed a survey on self-assessed well-being to 600 Ohio residents. One of the biggest takeaways from this survey was that young people do not seem to be doing well. This was the third recent U.S. well-being study that showed young people with lower levels of well-being than middle-age people, a departure from long-term trends of young people having higher levels of well-being than middle-age people in a plethora of past studies.
A $15 Minimum Wage for Ohio
Income security is related to a range of positive health outcomes. Over the past few years, a number of researchers have released high-quality quasiexperimental studies linking higher minimum wages to public health outcomes. In June, we released a cost-benefit analysis of a higher minimum wage in Ohio, estimating how suicides, infant mortality and birthweights, gun violence, child neglect, and high school graduation outcomes compare to unemployment and public costs associated with a higher minimum wage.
Overall, we estimate that a $15 minimum wage for Ohio would save 4,000 lives in the first ten years of implementation from reduced suicides, firearm homicides, and infant deaths. We estimate total economic benefits would outweigh economic costs of the policy by $5 to $45 billion over the next ten years.
Replacing Ohio’s Lead Lines: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
Another cost-benefit analysis we conducted this year in partnership with the Ohio Environmental Council was on replacement of lead services lines in the state of Ohio. Ohio is home to an estimated 745,000 lead service lines–8.1% of all lead service lines in the country and only behind Illinois and Florida in gross number of lead service lines. Lead service lines have been shown to impact health and development outcomes ranging from cognitive impacts to impacts to physical health.
We estimate that replacing Ohio’s lead service lines over the next fifteen years would lead to 150 fewer cases of ADHD, 520 fewer cases of dementia, 3,800 cases of depression, 7,300 fewer cases of anemia, 9,700 fewer deaths from heart disease, 2,400 cases of coronary heart disease, and 640 fewer infant deaths over the next fifteen years. This would grow Ohio’s economy by between $145 and $185 billion over the next 15 years. This means for every dollar invested in lead pipe removal in Ohio, the state will see a social benefit of $32 to $45.
Benchmarking Central Ohio
When I first moved back to Columbus in 2017, one of the studies I came across that captivated me was the Benchmarking Central Ohio 2016 study, a study comparing Columbus to 22 “benchmark” metropolitan areas on dozens of different indicators. This year, we had the privilege to support the Columbus Foundation in compilation of the 2024 iteration of this report–the eighth version of this study and a glimpse into Columbus’s emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compared to peer metropolitan areas, Columbus is younger, has a larger LGBTQ population, has a strong labor market and low cost of living, high prekindergarten enrollment, library visitation, and volunteerism. It also has relatively low small business prevalence, high working poverty rates, and poor health outcomes on measures like obesity, diabetes, infant mortality, and drug overdose.
Poverty and Economic Insecurity in Franklin County
The 2024 iteration of 2023’s Poverty Snapshot was released earlier this month. In this study, we found nearly 40% of Franklin County residents struggle to make ends meet. This is driven by rising housing prices and is defined by a Black poverty rate twice the level of the white poverty rate, and a child poverty rate of 20%. The RISE Together Innovation Institute will use this information to inform its antipoverty efforts in 2025 and beyond.
Thanks to everyone who follows us in this work–we are committed to improving the quality of public policy analysis at the state and local level and are so happy about the work we have been able to do over the past year. We are looking forward to a 2025 that will be just as busy and exciting and hope to continue to make public policy more evidence based every chance we can get.