Rep. Phillips: Harmful Policies Leave Unemployed Ohioans Behind

COLUMBUS – The state jobs report for May was released today, highlighting the loss of 14,000 Ohioans from the workforce and 10,700 nonagricultural jobs in state-targeted industrial sectors last month, despite the unemployment rate ticking down to 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent in April. On Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that Ohio’s job creation rate for the fourth quarter of 2013 was below the national average again, at 1.4 percent compared to 1.8 percent nationwide. The Labor Department report also suggested that Ohio’s wages have continued to fall since the second quarter 2013. In response, House Assistant Democratic Leader Debbie Phillips (D-Albany) released the following statement:

“While Gov. Kasich touts a so-called ‘economic miracle,’ the sad reality is that more than 10,000 Ohioans lost their jobs this month, and even more have simply stopped looking. At the same time, Gov. Kasich and the GOP-dominated legislature continue to make it harder for these Ohioans to get ahead by pursuing policies that benefit a select few at the expense of everybody else, like cutting funds to schools while giving tax breaks to the wealthy. It is time to do better for the thousands of Ohioans who simply want a stable job that provides for their family—we need state policies that promote strong communities and broad-based opportunity, rather than just rewarding the few who are well-connected.”