Jobless Rate Hits 7.2% in Ohio

Ohio has hit the state’s highest rate of unemployment in 16 years. The national average is 5.7 percent, while Ohio’s rate is 1.5 percent higher.

A rate of 7.2 percent equates to 430,000 unemployed Ohioans. Since last year, Ohio has 96,000 additional unemployed workers.

Adding insult to injury, Forbes has said that four of the ten fastest dying cities are in Ohio.

Governor Strickland offered the “Turnaround Ohio Plan”, which he touted as a solution to Ohio’s economic woes. But last week, on the news of record unemployment numbers in Ohio, Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine was the one talking about the “Turnaround Ohio Plan”, stating “Governor Strickland is providing no leadership to turn around Ohio’s economy.”

A lot of blame will go around. Democrats will point to President Bush and the national economy, and the Republicans will point to Strickland and his unrealized “Turnaround Ohio Plan”.

Fixing the economic woes of Ohio is not easy, but making things worse than they are now is simple. If the flawed plan to provide seven days of mandatory sick leave passes, it will drive up the cost of hiring and employing people. It will suppress job creation and drive out the people who create jobs (businesses) in Ohio at a time when we can afford it the least.

NFIB/Ohio Opposes Ohio Healthy Families Act

Guest Blog: NFIB/Ohio

The inflexible plan known as the “Ohio Healthy Families Act,” is not the way to cure what ails Ohio’s economy; in fact, it’s a jobs killer. This harmful initiative would require all Ohio employers with 25 or more employees to provide seven days of paid sick leave to their full-time employees (and a pro-rated amount for part-time employees).  And while the idea of paid sick leave is something that most business owners agree with, this heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all approach with all its additional rules, regulations, requirements and traps, is not the way to approach the issue. The National Federation of Independent Business/Ohio does not oppose the idea of paid sick leave; but we do oppose the Ohio Healthy Families Act and are working to defeat it should it make its way to the ballot in November.

Business owners across Ohio understand the phrase that Woody Hayes so eloquently coined when he said, “You win with people.”  Certainly business owners want to provide benefits like paid sick leave to their employees, but they need to be given the leeway to determine when and how they can do so in the course of their business growth. An inflexible, government mandate like the Ohio Healthy Families Act would only reduce the ability that employees and employers have to negotiate an agreement that best suits the needs of employees and their families and their employer. Often, employees would rather negotiate other possible benefits like health insurance coverage, higher wages, more paid vacation, and incentive bonuses as opposed to additional paid sick leave. If the sick leave is mandated, it will certainly result in a cost to employers that they may be forced to cover by limiting the availability of these other benefits.

For example, if an employee’s total compensation package was represented by a pie chart, a number of slices would have to be taken out for things like Social Security, income taxes, workers’ compensation insurance, etc. These are fixed costs that cannot change. Then there would be slices taken out for things like healthcare coverage, vision and dental benefits, retirement plans and 401ks, and existing vacation and personal days. These are pieces of the pie that can be changed – although employers and employees alike do not want to decrease them. Whatever is left after all these slices are taken out is what the employee gets to take home as wages.

Ideally, businesses like to grow, generate more revenue and be able to make everyone’s pie a little bit larger. But the Ohio Healthy Families Act forces employees and employers alike to look at their compensation packages and try to find a place to fit in the cost of seven paid sick days; despite the fact that the pie isn’t getting any bigger. In fact, it may be shrinking since employers, like the rest of everyone else, are also facing skyrocketing energy costs, inflation concerns and the like.

The Ohio Healthy Families Act would be especially difficult for Ohio’s small businesses that may not have the infrastructure in place to handle the record-keeping and administrative aspects of this mandate. Also, small businesses often are able to be more flexible and accommodating to their employees in dealing with specific personal and family situations as they arise. This mandate would restrict their ability to be adaptable when their employees need flexibility.  Unfortunately, since Ohio’s small businesses traditionally account for two out of three of the net new jobs created each year (and in recent years small businesses have been the sole creators of jobs in Ohio while larger companies post net losses in jobs), we may be further crippling the backbone of our struggling economy by enacting the Ohio Healthy Families Act mandate.

At a time when Ohio is struggling to ignite an economic turn around, it is counterproductive to further tie the hands of employers and employees with new mandates like this paid sick leave proposal. Ohio businesses and their employees deserve to determine how best to structure the compensation and benefit plans that they adopt without unnecessary government intrusion.

Ty Pine
Legislative Director
NFIB/Ohio

Ohio Chamber Calls Proposed Sick Leave Mandate A Job-Killer

I have invested the last two weeks looking for a way to avoid a showdown on the November ballot that Ohioans could face with the employer mandated sick leave proposal.

To follow are some thoughts on the issue recently shared with me by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

Guest Blog: Ohio Chamber Calls Proposed Sick Leave Mandate A Job-Killer

On August 6, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will almost certainly submit enough signatures to qualify the so-called “Healthy Families Act” for the November ballot.  Ohio voters will then be asked to decide whether or not to pass a law that forces Ohio employers to give all of their employees a minimum number of days of paid sick leave annually.

While the idea may sound good on the surface, it’s really just another one-size-fits-all, government-knows-best mandate that fails to understand the needs of today’s workers or recognize the realities of the marketplace.  And mandating sick leave does nothing to nurse our sick economy back to health, either.

The union wants Ohioans to believe that this new mandate would make our state one of the most family-friendly states in the nation.  But what it doesn’t want voters to know about are the proposal’s many unintended consequences:

Brands Ohio as uncompetitive

No other state penalizes its employers with a similar mandate.  Ohio would be the first and only state in the union with a mandated paid sick leave law.  When we should be trying to demonstrate that the Buckeye State is open for business, this proposal would instead drive up the cost of doing business in Ohio.  Some existing companies will leave for less expensive states while others will dismiss Ohio as a potential expansion location.

Threatens existing pay, benefits, and jobs

This mandate would impose significant added costs on employers, who will have to make up the difference somewhere in an effort to remain competitive.  They will be forced to consider reductions in wages and other benefits, such as requiring employees to pay more for healthcare coverage.  Some companies may have no alternative but to cut jobs.  And some will not be able to afford the additional expense at all, leaving them no other choice but to shut their doors, costing even more Ohioans their jobs.

Interferes with positive employer-employee relationships

Today’s workers want more flexibility in scheduling time off to meet family needs and balance work and personal life.  Many employers are responding by establishing innovative policies to accommodate their workers.  The proposed new law would unravel these mutually beneficial work rules and benefit packages fashioned to balance employer and employee needs and best meet the unique needs of individual workplaces.

This proposal is, simply, a job-killer that creates more problems than it solves.  Ohio is already suffering through its worst economic period in 20 years and Ohioans have already suffered tens of thousands of jobs losses. 

Governor Ted Strickland is attempting to broker a compromise he hopes might keep the issue off the ballot.  However, his proposed “Principles of a Paid Sick Leave Act” would still require employers to provide paid sick leave to their employees.

The Ohio Chamber believes there can be no compromise that includes such a mandate, and agrees with Speaker of the House Jon Husted that a better approach would be for the governor to use his political influence to convince the SEIU to drop its destructive scheme.

Given the unlikelihood of this occurring, the Ohio Chamber urges voters to reject this harmful piece of legislation.  Ohio can’t afford to compromise jobs or the state’s economic competitiveness, and now is not the time to pass a law that imposes costly new mandates on small employers who can least afford it.  For more information about the mandated paid sick leave proposal, click here.

A Cycle of Debt

 

Last week Congress celebrated passage of a bail-out of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and many home owners who find their mortgage rates going up and can no longer afford them.

What Congress didn’t celebrate so loudly is the fact that it was paid for by our children and grandchildren through raising the debt cap. The logic of course is to borrow from future generations in order to pay for the irresponsible borrowing of today.

To put this in perspective, the federal debt is $9.5 trillion, $31,500 for every man, woman and child.

In Ohio, the constitution requires a balanced budget, but that doesn’t stop proposals for borrowing from coming forward. Just this year, Governor Strickland proposed borrowing $1.7 billion for a jobs package (it would have cost $3 billion in interest and principle). I opposed it on the grounds that we can’t borrow our way to prosperity and instead asked that we undertake a pay-as-we-go approach. In the end, thankfully, this point of view won out.

Both Republicans and Democrats own a share of the federal spending problem.

Knowing this, it is easier to see why so many Americans don’t bother balancing their own budgets–they are just following their leaders.

We can do better.