Archive for June, 2019

Is the nation’s and Ohio’s poverty rate an inescapable fact of life or one we choose to ignore? The breadth of the problem is inescapable: 16.7 percent of Franklin County residents live at the poverty level—$25,100 annual income for a family of four—and the poverty rate has increased in every large Ohio city from 1999 to the 2013-2017 period. At last count, it’s 20.8 percent in Columbus and 36.8 percent in Youngstown.

If we want to fix the problem, ...