- November 9, 2018
- Policy Matters Ohio
- Hannah Halbert
Poverty rates in Ohio remain high despite improvements in the job market. There were still 115,000 more Ohioans living in poverty in 2017 than in the year prior to the last recession.Child poverty is exceedingly high. Cleveland has the highest child poverty in the nation — nearly half of all kids. Cincinnati had the third highest child poverty rate in the nation. More than 513,000 Ohio kids lived below the poverty line last year. This has long term consequences for our children and our state. Policy makers have failed to address this crisis. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a tax policy designed to help. Yet, Ohio’s EITC remains one of the weakest in the nation.