(Ohio Capital Journal Photo) President and CEO of JobsOhio J.P. Nauseef (left) with Gov. Mike DeWine and First Lady Fran DeWine at a groundbreaking ceremony for Intel’s semiconductor manufacturing site, September 9, 2022, in Licking County, Ohio.

Once a political and economic powerhouse, Ohio is now expected to lose 675,000 people by 2050, according to the state Department of Development. That’s due to a lack of sufficient job opportunities, an overwhelming majority of economists said in a recent survey.

The bad news comes after more than a decade during which state Republican leaders handed out billions in tax breaks and other incentives heavily tilted toward the wealthy on promises they would create jobs.

Currently the seventh-most populous state, Ohio is expected to be surpassed in population by Georgia and North Carolina around 2030, according to the Department of Development report, which was issued last year.

A 2022 report by the Greater Ohio Policy Center said that the state labor force declined by 91,000 between 2000 and 2020 — a pretty good indicator that a weak job market has been to blame for the Buckeye State’s slowing population growth.

In a survey conducted by Scioto Analysis in late December, economists agreed jobs and growth are linked. Asked whether they agreed that “Employment opportunities are a major contributor to Ohio’s current population-growth trend,” 20 agreed, one disagreed and two were uncertain.

In the comment section of the survey, Kathryn Wilson of Kent State University said the places in Ohio where population is growing confirm the relationship between economic opportunity and population trends. Unlike most other counties, Franklin and five others in Central Ohio are expected to grow in population, some robustly.

“Employment opportunities are a contributor on both sides of the ledger,” Wilson wrote. “Areas around Columbus that are seeing growth in population are also seeing job growth. Other areas of the state with less job growth are seeing a net migration out of people.”

Andy Welki of John Carroll University put it more succinctly.

“Self interest drives individual choices,” he wrote. “People follow economic opportunities.”

The sour news about Ohio’s growth comes after the state’s Republican leadership has spent billions on promises that those expenditures would create jobs.

In 2011, then-Gov. John Kasich led the effort to create JobsOhio, which now has a large, highly paid staff. The organization claims it is a private company, but it was created by the legislature.

Without competitive bidding, it was allowed to lease the state liquor franchise for less than it was worth. And a year ago, a board under now-Gov. Mike DeWine extended the lease to 2053 — without requiring JobsOhio to pay taxpayers any additional money.

Taxpayers have now foregone well over $1 billion that they would have received from the liquor franchise. JobsOhio has awarded that money in business incentives, but it has struggled to show that it’s created any jobs.

DeWine also has provided billions to a Central Ohio chipmaker for a project that may never become reality. In addition, his administration has provided incentives to low-employment data centers that one analysis said cost taxpayers $1 million for each job created.

In addition to all that, Kasich in 2013 signed into law a tax break for limited liability companies that is heavily tilted in favor of wealthy Ohioans. Again, the promise was that it would create jobs.

That tax break costs Ohioans about $1 billion a year. But Ohio now has the nation’s sixth-highest unemployment. So that, too, appears to not be working.

Original story can be found at https://ohiocapitaljournal.com