JobsOhio Responds—You Judge the Strength of That Response

JobsOhio hides behind "trade secret" claim in a "heads, I win; tails, you lose" manner then compares its results to the single worst decade for job growth in nearly 100 years, not competitor states.

I want to start this column by thanking JobsOhio’s Vice President of Marketing & Communications Ryan Squire for finally engaging with me. Why it took over a decade for someone there to respond to my data-driven criticism is puzzling. I still haven’t received any response from Steve Stivers, Pat Tiberi, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, or the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants. Again, tough talk in a fora in which they don’t have to defend their positions. The bottom line based on the X exchange I had with Squire is this (in my view):

Despite getting nearly 100% of all funding Ohio dedicates to economic development, JobsOhio has cherrypicked ten sectors it thinks it will do well in whether or not those sectors actually bring the volume of jobs Ohioans need to grow and to attract non-Ohioans. Based on non-public data, it claims it has grown those trade-secret protected sectors by 19% or so. We should just trust them on that. Therefore, don’t blame JobsOhio for spending nearly 100% of economic development funding on its ten sectors just because Governor Mike DeWine and the legislature have failed to do the things needed to grow the sectors JobsOhio chooses not to compete in. It is DeWine et al.’s fault Ohio’s OVERALL private sector job growth is crap, as the smaller portion that JobsOhio claims it is competing in is doing just fine—though it is a “trade secret” to tell us exactly what those sectors are or even to show us the actual data after investments are made.

Let me give you two examples. Data centers. JobsOhio clearly engages in data center work, but so does every state and every state that wants them is getting them in spades. JobsOhio calls that success. Data centers bring few permanent jobs, but they are “high tech” so that justifies chasing them despite the higher energy and water costs for consumers that come with those data centers. I call that shooting fish packed in a barrel.

The next example is healthcare. Again, if you travel often as I do, you would know that EVERY state is building huge hospital additions and adding a large number of healthcare jobs. That is what happens when (a) the federal government expanded Medicaid thereby jacking up enrollment and (b) America possesses the largest contingent of people over age 65 at any point in its history, all of whom extensively use Medicare. Again, investing in healthcare is akin to being the one-eyed guy in the land of the blind. Ohioans need jobs. Lots of jobs. Lots of jobs bring competition for workers, which drives pay and benefits up. My fundamental point remains the same: where are the damn jobs? Since 2011, Ohio’s private sector has been among America’s bottom third, its population has stagnated, and Ohio’s recovery from the pandemic is weaker than most other states.

One thing I will say about the exchange that shocked me was when Squire tried to pump up the JobsOhio results from 2011 to 2020 by comparing it to “the previous decade.” Let’s talk about that previous decade. Not only did America suffer through the severe dotcom bust that caused a recession in 2001 and the historic very severe housing bust in 2007-2009 that caused a substantial multi-year recession, but we also went through a major terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, in New York City and Washington, D.C., in which more Americans died in one day than on any day going back to the Civil War’s Battle of Antietam on another September day in 1862. Even more, with China entering the World Trade Organization in 2001, its theft of jobs and factories in the Rust Belt Midwest was launched. I mean, seriously, talk about punching down by comparing apples to burnt toast. After JobsOhio was created, America went an entire decade without a recession, so it would be a massive shock if ANY economic development entity in ANY state didn’t best the 2001 to 2010 period for job growth. On that point, recall my previous post in which I pointed out that per BLS data, Ohio, along with Mississippi and Michigan, were the LAST states to get back to the jobs peak reached in March of 2000.

At any rate, I’m moving on from this issue because Ohio’s political leaders are too timid and compromised by the largesse I believe they receive from JobsOhio to do anything more than wag their collective fingers at JobsOhio for funding the dumb le affaire podcast. I will, however, make an open offer to JobsOhio: I will gladly sign a non-disclosure agreement so it can let me pour over all of the records thereby allowing my to verify that what it claims is true is, well, actually true. That won’t end my belief that Ohio should eliminate JobsOhio and use its billions to strategically fund key infrastructure like a world-class airport down at Rickenbacker and faster highways to get southwestern Ohioans to that airport. If you truly think that Ohio’s economy can boom when it is stuck with the 47th, 49th, and 50th busiest airports in America, you are delusional. It is absurd that America’s 7th largest state with the 15th largest city doesn’t have one airport across the entire state in which a connection flight exists (meaning, someone flies into that airport to catch another flight elsewhere). Every flight to Ohio ends there for its passengers, whereas, most flights out of Ohio require travelers to catch second flights to get to their destinations. No sane business would operate from that environment, which is why Ohio is losing businesses at a faster pace than it is adding them. Eliminate JobsOhio and build the damn airport.

P.S. Let me add: if you reverse engineer Squire’s comment re 19% growth of targeted sectors in which JobsOhio claims it added 197,000 since 2011, that means JobsOhio’s focus WITH 100% OF OHIO’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT funds only targets 1,000,000 jobs out of the 4,879,000 jobs Ohio’s private sector has, or just 20.5% or 1/5th of Ohio’s private sector. Maybe it is me, but that seems like a GROSS OVERINVESTMENT and weak results for that level of investment.

Here is the X exchange for your review: