Ohio has had impressive job gains since Kasich took office in January 2011, but at the same time wages have been declining or flat for more than a decade, the data shows.
That has fueled some of the frustration felt by people like Chris Page, 33, a delivery driver for DHL Express in the Cincinnati area.
“It’s still a struggle to make ends meet,” Page said. “For the ones like me that work hard, put their 40 hours in; most of us have nothing to show for it except for a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and food on the table. To me, that’s not really the American dream.”
Still, Ohio’s jobless rate has been cut nearly in half — falling from 9.2 percent in 2011 to 4.9 percent in January. Meanwhile, Ohio during that time added more than 383,000 total jobs, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The growth in private-sector employment alone topped more than 400,000 over the same period, as Kasich proudly boasts in his campaign ads.
In the Cincinnati metropolitan — which includes Butler and Warren counties — the jobless rate fell from 9.9 to 5.2 percent, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services data shows.
Ohio now has more workers on non-farm payrolls than there were when the recession began in December 2007, and demand for workers continues to grow, especially in the state’s manufacturing industry, which was decimated by the recession.
“We continue to see growth in the number of things made here,” said Warren Davidson, chairman of the Dayton Region Manufacturers Association and a Republican candidate for Congress in John Boehner’s former district. “The number of workers is smaller…but skilled workers are very, very in demand across a whole range of industries.”
‘I’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE’
Political observers caution against expressing too much enthusiasm about the economic recovery.
“Jobs are coming back, but there’s still a great deal to do in terms of strengthening the middle class,” said Bryan Marshall, a political science professor at Miami University. “There’s a lot of angst and anger among voters about how the promise of the middle class has kind of fallen to the wayside.”
Wages are a source of much of the frustration.
Since 1999, median household income in Ohio dropped more than 16 percent when adjusted for inflation — the second-biggest drop in the nation, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promise to address the problem by raising the minimum wage and broadening safety net programs, while Republican contenders — including Kasich, billionaire businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz — want to spur job creation by lowering taxes and shedding regulations.
Page isn’t impressed, describing the political discourse as “just noise.”
“I’ve heard it all before,” he said. “I have no hope for the American government at all. Whoever they put in office; the working man is still going to get shafted.”
DISSATISFIED VOTERS
Marshall of Miami University said frustration with mainstream policies and politicians has fueled a kind of economic populism that has served to elevate the campaigns of Trump and Sanders, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist.”
Trump has promised to build a wall along the U.S. southern border to enhance security and protect jobs from illegal immigrants while renegotiating trade agreements to bring lost jobs back in hordes. Meanwhile, Sanders promises to make tuition free at public colleges and universities
While such campaign promises seem unrealistic to many political pundits, they resonate with deeply dissatisfied voters, fueling the record turnouts that have occurred in numerous states.
“A lot of these voters feel somebody like Trump or Sanders isn’t going to be beholding to big business, necessarily, and maybe they really can deliver something different than their establishment counterparts,” Marshall said.
DISENCHANTED WORKERS
Much of Trump’s support comes from blue-collar, unskilled workers who were hit hardest by the recession, but many highly educated voters with liberal ideologies too have become disenchanted.
“I’d like to see our next president create more jobs over here, in the U.S., instead of overseas,” said Katie Woodie, a University of Dayton graduate who is moving to Tennessee for a teaching job. “I’d also like to see somebody in office who can provide an education for students here with a tuition that most people can afford…so that everybody has a chance to go to school if they want to.”
Woodie, who said she’s undecided about her presidential pick, is frustrated because many of her former classmates graduated with advanced degrees and still can’t find jobs in their fields of study. Some of them, she said, have been forced to work in low-wage jobs that pay barely enough to pay down their student loans, much less keep up with the top earners in the state.
“I’m OK,” she said. “But a lot of my friends are still struggling.”
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