Should Ohio taxpayers give Jimmy Haslam $600 million for a new Cleveland Browns stadium?

It’s budget season, so the lobbyists are out in full swing.

Tennessee Billionaire and Gas Station Tycoon Jimmy Haslam, known up here as the owner of the Cleveland Browns, is purportedly drumming up support among lawmakers for a $600 million subsidy for a new Browns stadium and that money could be proposed as soon as the Governor’s budget request.

For comparison, this is about as much as the state allocated for highway maintenance across the entire state in 2025. It’s a chunk of change.

So what will we get for this investment? Will the Browns be able to scrounge up more than three wins by a combined 13 points and a three-way tie for last in the league if we throw hundreds of millions of dollars at them?

To be fair, there have been no public promises that Haslam and Company will produce a team that avoids embarrassing the state if they get this subsidy. Public arguments have been pretty threadbare: the City of Cleveland has been hostile to the idea of a new stadium. This seems to have shifted Haslam’s eyes down I-71 to see what kind of success he can have under the dome in Columbus getting help to pay for the project.

So far, the reception has been tepid. New Senate President Rob McColley said he was opposed to a “handout” to the Browns when he heard about the proposal. Some policymakers are kicking around backing the project with state bonds, bumping the cost up to $3 billion and using some of that money to develop nearby hotels, restaurants, and housing.

So let’s get back to the meat of the issue: why would we do this? What is it about football stadiums that makes a businessman or a lobbyist think he can credibly waltz into a lawmaker’s office and shamelessly ask for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars? I mean, these aren’t utility companies we’re talking about.

The case lobbyists make for stadium subsidies is fundamentally economic. With a professional football team, your state will get on television. People will travel from far away to visit your city, they will stay at your hotels, they will eat at restaurants, and you will become a destination.

The consensus among economists is that this story is a fantasy. Yes, economic activity will increase around a football stadium: it can be an anchor for a flurry of economic activity once a week twenty times a year. But where does this money come from?

Entertainment budgets are not flexible. If someone didn’t go to a stadium, they would probably go to a bar, restaurant, movie, play, or live performance somewhere else in the city. So new economic activity is not created, it simply is shifted from one part of the city to another.

A study published in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis just a few months ago underscores this economic consensus. For a professional sports team or stadium to be anything other than a net negative on the local economy, it needs to (a) attract visitors from other cities, and (b) get its owner and players to spend a significant share of their income in the area.

So if legislators are going to take this seriously, they need evidence of three things. First, they need to see that this new stadium will bring significant numbers of new visitors to Ohio. Second, they need to see that Jimmy and his team are spending a lot of their own money in Ohio. And third, they need to see that this is a better investment than transportation infrastructure, education, broadband, and the many other priorities they will have to put aside to give Jimmy a new place for his team to play.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.

Scioto Analysis releases report on Central Ohio’s New American community

New Scioto Analysis report explores the economic potential of one of central Ohio’s most rapidly-growing populations.

Central Ohio is home to a growing immigrant and new American community, which is playing an important role in shaping the region's social and economic fabric. A new Scioto Analysis study, conducted in partnership with Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services, sheds light on the needs, challenges, and opportunities facing this population.

In interviews with dozens of community leaders, nonprofit workers, and new Americans, analysts asked questions about economic and financial barriers faced by immigrants in central Ohio. The study highlights six key barriers for new Americans: language skills, housing, financial services, education, transportation, and employment. It also highlights the struggles of immigrant-serving organizations in overcoming funding and coordination challenges and the pressing need for legal services. By addressing these barriers, the region can support immigrants and the broader Central Ohio community.

Key Findings:

• Over two-thirds of interviewees identified language barriers as a top challenge, which limit access to employment, financial services, and social integration.

• Half of respondents cited the lack of affordable and quality housing as a major issue, with many immigrants facing exploitation from housing providers.

• Immigrants in Central Ohio often experience underemployment, with many unable to use their professional credentials and skills due to bureaucratic and cultural obstacles.

• Nearly half of the respondents noted financial literacy as a barrier, particularly around the complexities of the U.S. credit system.

The report also highlights significant data gaps, including limited information on undocumented immigrants, second-generation immigrants, and the economic contributions of new Americans.

Recommendations:

1. Address the pressing need for affordable English classes and translation services to foster integration and accessibility by expanding language and translation services.

2. Develop programs to demystify the U.S. credit and banking system for immigrants by promoting financial literacy programs.

3. Work with policymakers to reduce barriers for skilled immigrants to contribute to the workforce by streamlining licensing and credentialing.

4. Improve practices in data collection to better understand and serve Central Ohio's immigrant communities.

The report identifies potential avenues for community investment, including language skill development, financial literacy programs, and enhanced coordination between community organizations and larger nonprofits.

“Central Ohio’s new American community will play a key part in the region’s growth and success over the next twenty years,” said Scioto Analysis Principal Rob Moore. “By acting to support immigrants and new Americans, policymakers and grantmakers can improve quality of life for all its residents.”

The economics of crime

In my first semester of college I took a class on the philosophy of law. We went through the history of philosophers discussing why we have laws and what enforcing them did for society. This is a gross oversimplification, but most of these philosophies essentially boiled down to “we don’t want people to commit crimes because that is inherently wrong and it doesn’t fit in with our broader social norms. This is why when people break the law, we punish them.”

I did quite poorly in this class so I couldn’t explain more of the nuance even if I wanted to, but these ideas about crime and punishment left me feeling unsatisfied. It wasn’t until later when I was exposed to the economic theory behind crime that I felt like I began to agree with a general understanding of why crime is a problem and what our society could do about it. 

So, I’d like to provide a brief introduction to the way that economists think about crime and the criminal justice system. These are the broad ideas of why economists think crime is a negative part of our society, why people choose to do it, and what policy options we have for reducing crime.

Why crime is an economic problem

At Scioto Analysis, we think a lot about the value that non-market activity has on the economy. Generally, we think of non-market activity as an addition to the formal economy because people who participate in non-market activity are adding value despite the fact that they are not being formally compensated. 

Criminal activity is different from other forms of non-market activity because it largely falls under the umbrella of “rent-seeking behavior.” Rent-seeking is a poorly worded term that has nothing to do with our general understanding of what rent is, but instead describes activity that benefits one individual but does not create any additional value for society. While rents are traditionally earned by ownership of a resource, rent-seeking behavior is characterized by manipulation of markets to gain an advantage that siphons resources from others.

Stealing is a good example of rent-seeking because the person who steals receives some benefit for themselves, but that benefit strictly comes from another part of the economy. In fact, stealing is likely to shrink the overall economy, since other people now have to spend some money on security systems to prevent falling victim, an otherwise unnecessary drag on their capacity to get the things they want.

Crime through an economic lens

In order to think of economic solutions to the problem of crime, we need to understand the incentives that exist for people to choose criminal activity in the first place. To do this, we will construct a very simple decision model.

Consider an individual whose goal is to maximize their individual utility. To do this, they get to decide whether they will participate in criminal activity, or alternatively some sort of formal market activity. We can describe their utilities very simply with the following functions:

In the first equation, the individual’s utility is exactly the value they expect to get from their regular market activity. This could easily be thought of as the wage they expect to earn by working some job. The key assumption here is that this value is fixed for our individual, and it is easily known. 

In the second equation, this person’s utility relies on the probability that they will be arrested for committing a crime. If this person is arrested, they gain no utility and instead incur some negative cost associated with being arrested. If they are not arrested, then they receive the full benefit for committing a crime. Their expected utility is then the benefit they will get from committing the crime multiplied by the probability of not being arrested, minus the cost of being arrested times the probability of being arrested. In this very simple scenario, our individual will choose the option that maximizes their utility. 

In the above equations, there is really only one variable that public policy can’t have any impact on — the benefit of committing crime. All of the other factors are things that can at least be influenced by policymakers.

Often, discussions around how to prevent crime focus on the illegal market side of the equation. The “tough on crime” attitude that rose to the forefront in the 1990s is a hallmark of this type of policymaking. More police and more severe punishments are ways to decrease the expected utility of committing crimes and push some people on the margins towards formal market decisions. 

But this isn’t the only approach. Another strategy is to raise the expected value of formal market activity. Higher wages, better hours, more benefits–these are all ways we could discourage crime by making the alternative more appealing. 

This is especially true for people who have committed crimes in the past. One major shortcoming of the current criminal justice system is that individuals often experience a significant reduction in their expected utility for formal market employment upon leaving prison. It is more difficult for people with criminal records to find high-quality jobs, making returning to criminal behavior relatively more attractive. 

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The economic research on the criminal justice system is far deeper than I can go into in a blog post. There are countless issues concerning the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of the criminal justice system that warrant a lot of attention. Hopefully, this has allowed you to see crime through a new lens, where rational actors are making utility maximizing decisions like everyone else in our society. The problem we should be solving is how we can get individual decisions to align with social goals.

What is “the economy?”

For a topic that captures such a large portion of our political and public policy focus, “the economy” is a relatively undefined term. So much that its ill-definition has made it the subject of public ridicule at times.

A common way to define the economy is “the total sum of trade of goods and services in a community.” This is a pretty good way to define the underpinnings of Gross Domestic Product, which many see to be a comprehensive definition of “the economy.”

There is a problem with Gross Domestic Product, though: it is not comprehensive. While it is a helpful indicator, Gross Domestic Product does not truly measure “the economy,” it measures formal market activity.

What is economic that does not qualify as “formal market activity?” Well one example is informal market activity. When children trade pokemon cards on a playground, value is created in the same way that it is when you buy a bottle of water at a CVS. The former does not show up in Gross Domestic Product, however. Same for when someone pays their neighbor’s teenage kid $20 to mow their lawn, someone buys drugs illegally, or someone pays a friend for a tattoo. Most of these are not being tracked by the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, or Treasury.

Another example is nonmarket activity. For instance, if you quit your job to take care of a young child, the cost of losing the job shrinks Gross Domestic Product, but the benefit of taking care of the child is not accounted for. Uses of time like volunteering, recreation, and sleep also are not formal market activity, though we trade the time away we could spend doing these things for time spent in formal markets. Ignoring the value of nonmarket activity can lead to wrongheaded assumptions, like the idea that increasing labor force participation rates comes with no tradeoffs. Increasing labor force participation unambiguously increases formal market activity all else being equal. But it does this by levying costs on society not seen in formal markets.

Another example is external costs and benefits of market activity, known by economists as “externalities.” External costs and benefits are costs and benefits of market activity that accrue to people who do not take part in a particular transaction. For instance, people who grow up nearby a coal-fire power plant may have higher rates of asthma than those who do not. The power generator generates power by burning fuel and releasing pollutants into the air that cause asthma nearby. The transaction levies external costs on people not involved in the transaction. Similarly, when someone purchases higher education from a university, they then increase their human capital, making a more skilled worker available to future employers. That is an external benefit of the transaction.

What these examples show us is that “formal market activity” is an insufficient definition of “the economy.” We certainly economize other parts of our lives than those found in formal markets.

So we’re back to square one. What do we mean when we talk about “the economy?”

I will offer an alternate definition that comes closer to what I really think we mean when we say “the economy.” The economy is a framework to understand how society meets the needs and desires of its members under conditions of scarcity.

Yes, dollars and cents are a part, and often a key part, of understanding the economy. But fixation on dollars and cents can leave a policy analyst–or worse: a policymaker–focused on outcomes that could undermine the fulfillment of needs and desires of members of society while trying to meet them. The aforementioned focus on labor force participation rate is a great example of this phenomenon. When hours worked increase, they are taken away from other activities, be they caring for loved ones, rest, exercise, or education.

A field where an impoverished understanding of “the economy” has caused confusion and even hurt people is in child care and early childhood education. A prominent study of the Quebec universal child care program showed that an ambitious child care program without quality controls led to negative effects on noncognitive outcomes, worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life. Policymakers were so focused on providing every way possible for mothers to enter the labor force that they created a policy that led to significant negative spillover effects.

Child care is riddled with problems of an impoverished conception of economics because of its heterogeneous market. Child care can be provided by formal centers, licensed in-home child care providers, unlicensed friends and family members, and parents themselves. These are on a spectrum of market formality. Some argue child care is higher quality in formal markets, but the Quebec counterexample calls that assumption into question. By subsidizing the choice to move children from at-home and informal care to formal care, that policy hurt outcomes for children and parents.

Ultimately, I started Scioto Analysis because I wanted people to think about the economy in a bigger way. A better economy maximizes welfare by focusing on how to get people things they need and want more efficiently. Yes, that means finding ways to make commodities like gasoline and groceries cheaper. It also means ensuring people have the means to be healthy, have sufficient time to spend with family and rest, and have access to educational resources that can lead to compounding benefits for society.

Anyone who has studied public policy analysis has had the ubiquity of “tradeoffs” drilled into their head, and for good reason. Tradeoffs are ubiquitous in society and economic thinking is a framework for tackling tradeoffs. But if we leave artificial barriers to our economic thinking where formal markets end, then we miss the larger picture: that people are economizing their lives across all aspects. They are deciding whether to take that promotion because the taxes make it not quite worth spending less time with their children. They are getting less sleep than recommended because they need to get up in time for their second job. They are incrementally risking the chance of a car crash in order to shave a minute off their commute.

These are all decisions we as human beings need to make every moment of our lives. The current life expectancy is 77.5 years in the United States, meaning on average, we each get about two-thirds of a million hours to spend on this planet. Each decision we make is an allocation of that precious time that we will never get back. With good public policy, we can gently caress society to make each one of those hours more valuable.

That’s the economy. And that’s why it matters that we understand it to its fullest. Because those hours become even more precious the more we know about them.

State minimum wages adjusted for cost of living

This week, low-wage workers across Ohio got a pay raise. Now that the calendar has turned to 2025, the minimum wage in Ohio has increased to $10.70 per hour. This is because Ohio is one of 20 states that adjust their minimum wage for inflation each year. 

Minimum wage rates in the United States have rose in prominence in the United States over the past decade due to the rise of the “Fight for $15” movement. During the last election cycle, several states voted on minimum wage initiatives. However, one consideration that often gets left out of the discussion is how minimum wages relate to local cost of living.

We know that cost of living varies quite a lot from state-to-state, with it generally being true that it is more expensive to live on either coast of the country compared to the middle states. To measure this, we often rely on the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Regional Price Parity index, which allows us to compare each state’s relative cost of living on a single scale.

In the following table, I used this index to adjust each state’s minimum wage for cost of living. This adjusted minimum wage represents what the equivalent wage would be for a person living somewhere with an average cost of living. 

Below are some of the main takeaways that jumped out to me when I looked at this data. 

New Hampshire’s unique position

New Hampshire uses the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. It also has a higher than average cost of living, with residents paying about 5.3% more than the national average for goods and services. These two facts together make New Hampshire’s minimum wage $6.88–37 cents lower than the federal minimum wage. This makes New Hampshire the only state in the country whose adjusted minimum wage is lower than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. 

With a regional price parity of 105.35, New Hampshire is the 8th most expensive state in the country. The state with the next-lowest adjusted minimum wage is Pennsylvania at $7.44, though they are only the 21st most expensive state by regional price parity.

Missouri and Nebraska look strong in context

Missouri and Nebraska are the two states that rise the most in the rankings, both moving up 11 spots from 18 and 19 to 7 and 8 respectively. Additionally, both of these states are in the top 5 when it comes to the difference in nominal minimum wage vs. adjusted minimum wage, with Missouri’s minimum wage being $1.23 more per hour and Nebraska’s being $1.44 more after adjusting for cost of living.

Ohio stays put

In both nominal and adjusted minimum wage, Ohio ranks 28th. This is somewhat of a surprising result given the fact that Ohio has a relatively low cost of living compared to the country as a whole. Ohio’s adjusted minimum wage is $11.65 per hour, $0.95 higher than its nominal minimum wage of $10.70.

What’s even more interesting is there is almost no movement around Ohio in these rankings. The only states that change their position relative to Ohio are Minnesota (moving from #26 to #29 after adjusting for cost of living) and Montana (moving from #30 to #27 after adjusting for cost of living). Almost all of the movement in these rankings happen near the extremities. 

Minimum wage parity is greater than it appears

Before we adjust for differences in regional prices, the gap between the lowest and highest minimum wage was $10.25 per hour. When looking at the adjusted wages, this gap shrinks to $8.91 per hour.

The fact that the gap between the highest and lowest minimum wages drops by so much is especially interesting given that the lowest adjusted minimum wage is lower than the federal minimum wage. This means that this change is entirely driven by the fact that the states with the highest minimum wage have a higher than average cost of living.

Three studies that made an impact on 2024

Every December, we like to highlight some of the recent research that has been shaping public policy over the past year. With the presidential election this year, there was extra attention paid to policy issues that will have major ramifications for years to come. Here are three papers we found extremely valuable this year.

Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Employment Effects of the 2021 Fully Refundable Monthly Child Tax Credit, by Pac & Berger:

Pac and Berger's study investigates the impact of the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit on caregiver employment. This expansion aimed to provide substantial financial support to families, and the researchers specifically focused on whether this led to changes in employment rates among caregivers.

A common criticism of child tax credits is that they might lead to a decline in employment for caregivers, essentially using the added income from the credit to substitute away from wage income. If this were true, it would weaken the effectiveness of child tax credits from an anti-poverty perspective.

Instead, this paper finds that there is no identifiable impact on employment for recipients of the child tax credit. In fact, there was a slight increase in employment for caregivers with two or more children relative to caregivers with one child. 

The implications of this study are significant for policymakers considering the implementation of non-work-conditioned child allowances in the US. It demonstrates that financial support to families can be provided without negatively impacting workforce participation.

Disability and Distress: The Effect of Disability Programs on Financial Outcomes, by Deshpande, Gross, and Su

Deshpande, Gross, and Su won the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics’s award for best paper by exploring how disability programs like Supplemental Security Income affect financial distress among recipients. Using linked administrative data, they examined records on bankruptcy, foreclosure, eviction, home purchases, and home sales to understand the financial impact of disability allowances.

This paper finds that these cash transfers significantly reduce the likelihood of adverse financial events such as bankruptcy, foreclosure, and home sales. By offering essential support, disability allowances help individuals avoid the worst case scenarios that lead to even worse long term problems.

Additionally, the data indicate that financial difficulties peak around the time individuals apply for disability benefits. This pattern suggests a potential causal link between disability status and financial distress, highlighting the importance of timely financial support. Ensuring that individuals receive disability allowances when needed can prevent financial crises and promote economic stability.

The research underscores the importance of disability programs in providing financial stability to recipients. Timing is everything, and there seem to be significant benefits to getting these resources to people as quickly as possible. 

Discounting in Natural Resource Damage Assessment, by Horsch, Leggett, and Curry 

This paper by Horsch, Leggett, and Curry addresses the complexities of selecting a discount rate in natural resource damage assessment cases. They won the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis’ Best Article Award for studying how discount rates are crucial in determining the present value of future environmental damages and restoration gains, and reviewing the conceptual and empirical basis for these selections.

The paper examines the existing 3% real discount rate commonly used in natural resource damage assessments, and presents arguments for potentially lowering it in response to declining interest rates. Two alternative methods for determining the discount rate are discussed: the social rate of time preference and the coerced loan theory. 

The authors conclude that there are enough questions about other ways of calculating the discount rate, that it makes practical sense to simply use the 3% discount rate that has historically been used to settle these cases. The 3% number is roughly the median discount rate, and in the absence of a more conclusive “best” discount rate, 3% makes a lot of sense.

Discussions about what the appropriate discount rate is have dominated the discourse among economists since the release of the revised Office of Management and Budget Circular A-4 late last year. Future research on this topic is likely to be one of the most important developments in the field of cost-benefit analysis in the coming years.

Ohio economists say state programs can reduce infant mortality

In a survey released this morning by Scioto Analysis, 18 out of 20 economists surveyed agreed that providing targeted health and human service programs to pregnant women will significantly reduce infant mortality. 

Currently, the Ohio Legislature is considering HB7, “the Strong Foundations Act,” which would appropriate $34 million over two fiscal years to fund a suite of programs aimed at improving outcomes for pregnant people as well as families with very young children. 

The current problem is highlighted by Jonathan Andreas from Bluffton University: “The US does poorly on infant mortality and it is partly due to poor prenatal care for women who are uninsured or who have health insurance that discourages care through high-deductibles or by randomly denying coverage for routine care.” Or as Kay Strong writes “healthy mothers are a prerequisite for healthy children.”

Additionally, 12 of 20 economists surveyed agreed that providing targeted health and human service programs to pregnant women will increase maternal labor force participation. As Jonathan Andreas wrote “healthier moms with healthier babies are generally better able to work.”

Will Georgic from Ohio Wesleyan was uncertain about the labor force impacts of these policies, writing: “The direction of this relationship entirely depends on the structure and incentives of the health and human service programs. It's possible to imagine these programs either increasing or decreasing labor force participation of pregnant women. It is still possible, though, for these programs to be efficient even if they result in a temporary reduction in labor force participation for expecting mothers.”

The Ohio Economic Experts Panel is a panel of over 40 Ohio Economists from over 30 Ohio higher educational institutions conducted by Scioto Analysis. The goal of the Ohio Economic Experts Panel is to promote better policy outcomes by providing policymakers, policy influencers, and the public with the informed opinions of Ohio’s leading economists. Individual responses to all surveys can be found here.

Six 2024 Scioto Analysis studies you may have missed

2024 has been an eventful year in the public policy world, and has been Scioto Analysis’s busiest year to date. We have worked on a range of different public policy topics in the tax and budget, health and human services, and energy and environment sectors throughout the year. I wanted to share information on six of the studies that I am most proud of this year, so if you don’t expectantly wait for every new Scioto Analysis release, this is a great way for you to get caught up!

Ohio Poverty Measure

In April, Scioto Analysis released its second iteration of the Ohio Poverty Measure, an estimate of the extent and quality of poverty in Ohio. This methodology is very similar to the methodology used in the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which improves on the Official Poverty Measure by tying thresholds to a wider range of goods than just food, considering taxes and public support and their impacts on poverty, and making geographic adjustments for cost of living. The Ohio Poverty Measure gives a more fine-grained estimate of poverty by using American Community Survey data, which surveys a larger number of people than the Supplemental Poverty Measure’s Current Population Survey.

This study estimated that 8.7% Ohioans lived in poverty in 2021. It also estimated that about a quarter of a million Ohioans were lifted out of poverty by Social Security that year and that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reduced poverty in the state by two percentage points. It also highlighted severe disparities: Black Ohioans are 75% more likely to be in poverty than white Ohioans and residents living in urban and Appalachian communities were much more likely to be in poverty than those living in suburban communities.

Subjective Well-Being in Ohio

Over the past six years, Scioto Analysis has been conducting a multiyear research project on well-being in Ohio. We have looked at well-being from an economic perspective, the extent of poverty and inequality in the state, and human development as measured by income, education, and health of the population.

Earlier this year, we worked with a group of students at Ohio State University’s Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainability who distributed a survey on self-assessed well-being to 600 Ohio residents. One of the biggest takeaways from this survey was that young people do not seem to be doing well. This was the third recent U.S. well-being study that showed young people with lower levels of well-being than middle-age people, a departure from long-term trends of young people having higher levels of well-being than middle-age people in a plethora of past studies.

A $15 Minimum Wage for Ohio

Income security is related to a range of positive health outcomes. Over the past few years, a number of researchers have released high-quality quasiexperimental studies linking higher minimum wages to public health outcomes. In June, we released a cost-benefit analysis of a higher minimum wage in Ohio, estimating how suicides, infant mortality and birthweights, gun violence, child neglect, and high school graduation outcomes compare to unemployment and public costs associated with a higher minimum wage.

Overall, we estimate that a $15 minimum wage for Ohio would save 4,000 lives in the first ten years of implementation from reduced suicides, firearm homicides, and infant deaths. We estimate total economic benefits would outweigh economic costs of the policy by $5 to $45 billion over the next ten years.

Replacing Ohio’s Lead Lines: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Another cost-benefit analysis we conducted this year in partnership with the Ohio Environmental Council was on replacement of lead services lines in the state of Ohio. Ohio is home to an estimated 745,000 lead service lines–8.1% of all lead service lines in the country and only behind Illinois and Florida in gross number of lead service lines. Lead service lines have been shown to impact health and development outcomes ranging from cognitive impacts to impacts to physical health.

We estimate that replacing Ohio’s lead service lines over the next fifteen years would lead to 150 fewer cases of ADHD, 520 fewer cases of dementia, 3,800 cases of depression, 7,300 fewer cases of anemia, 9,700 fewer deaths from heart disease, 2,400 cases of coronary heart disease, and 640 fewer infant deaths over the next fifteen years. This would grow Ohio’s economy by between $145 and $185 billion over the next 15 years. This means for every dollar invested in lead pipe removal in Ohio, the state will see a social benefit of $32 to $45.

Benchmarking Central Ohio

When I first moved back to Columbus in 2017, one of the studies I came across that captivated me was the Benchmarking Central Ohio 2016 study, a study comparing Columbus to 22 “benchmark” metropolitan areas on dozens of different indicators. This year, we had the privilege to support the Columbus Foundation in compilation of the 2024 iteration of this report–the eighth version of this study and a glimpse into Columbus’s emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Compared to peer metropolitan areas, Columbus is younger, has a larger LGBTQ population, has a strong labor market and low cost of living, high prekindergarten enrollment, library visitation, and volunteerism. It also has relatively low small business prevalence, high working poverty rates, and poor health outcomes on measures like obesity, diabetes, infant mortality, and drug overdose.

Poverty and Economic Insecurity in Franklin County

The 2024 iteration of 2023’s Poverty Snapshot was released earlier this month. In this study, we found nearly 40% of Franklin County residents struggle to make ends meet. This is driven by rising housing prices and is defined by a Black poverty rate twice the level of the white poverty rate, and a child poverty rate of 20%. The RISE Together Innovation Institute will use this information to inform its antipoverty efforts in 2025 and beyond.

Thanks to everyone who follows us in this work–we are committed to improving the quality of public policy analysis at the state and local level and are so happy about the work we have been able to do over the past year. We are looking forward to a 2025 that will be just as busy and exciting and hope to continue to make public policy more evidence based every chance we can get.

5 Accomplishments of the Evidence Act

Last week, I wrote about what the Evidence Act is and what its goals are. The reason for this post was because I attended a panel of government officials and other experts talk about how things had been going over the last five years at last month’s Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management annual conference that helped me understand the importance of the federal evidence act. 

While there is still certainly a lot of room for improvement of federal evaluation practices as agencies further develop their own evaluation capacity and learn how to better cooperate, there have been a lot of major advances already. Here are the five most significant accomplishments of the Evidence Act so far.

Designation of Evaluation Officers

Agencies have appointed evaluation officers to coordinate and oversee evaluation activities at the agency level, ensuring management is available for a structured approach to evidence-building. These officers play a crucial role in implementing evidence-building plans, assessing the agency's evaluation capacity, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Launch of evaluation.gov

Since its launch in August 2021, evaluation.gov has served as a central hub for evaluation efforts across the federal government. This platform enhances transparency and accessibility, allowing the public and government employees to access and engage with evaluation activities. The site also has  a LinkedIn account and newsletter, which each broaden its reach and impact.

Publication of Learning Agendas and Evaluation Plans

Agencies have published inaugural learning agendas, capacity assessments, and four years of annual evaluation plans. These documents guide agencies' evaluation efforts, ensuring that they are aligned with strategic goals and that they address relevant policy questions using evidence-based methods.

Government-wide Standards for Program Evaluation

The Office of Management and Budget published the first-ever government-wide standards for program evaluation, emphasizing relevance and utility, rigor, independence and objectivity, transparency, and ethics. These standards provide a consistent framework for conducting high-quality evaluations across all federal agencies.

Support and Development for Evaluators

The federal evaluation community has developed and participated in numerous events, workshops, and resources to support evaluators. Notable initiatives include the Year of Evidence for Action forum series, over 60 evaluation-focused workshops, and the Federal Evaluation Toolkit. Additionally, the inaugural Evidence-Based Decision-Making Leadership Academy helps senior Federal executives foster a culture of evidence and learning within their organizations.

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Seeing such a strong commitment to evidence-based policymaking at the federal level is encouraging for an analyst to see. The experts that work in federal agencies have valuable information for policymakers.Having well-defined systems through the Evidence Act for sharing that information should lead to better outcomes for everyone. 

At Scioto Analysis, this is the kind of work we hope to bring to state and local governments. The scope of the Evidence Act is massive and would be largely infeasible for state and local governments to replicate in full, but even smaller scale evaluation and analysis can provide strong returns on investment. 

State and local governments should take the lessons learned from these first five years of the Evidence Act and apply them to their own policymaking where possible. 2025 will be a new year with many new lawmakers across all levels of government. Hopefully these new faces will be open to more collaboration and more commitment to evidence-based policymaking.

Is nuclear power ‘green energy?’

Last week, the Ohio General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine designating nuclear power as “green energy.”

Those who follow energy policy at the Statehouse should not find this particularly surprising. Last year, DeWine signed legislation to designate natural gas as “green energy.” Most experts would consider nuclear to be less harmful to the climate than natural gas, so this is not a particularly bold move.

Nor does it have much of a policy impact. According to analysis by the Legislative Service Commission, the term “green energy” is not used by the Ohio Revised Code in any substantial way. It seems that this is more of a “resolution” than a true policy change by the state.

“Green” is kind of an empty term on its own, though it stands for certain things. We associate “green” fuels as those that are good for the climate, our health, and the sustainability of our energy supply. So let’s ask those questions instead.

Is nuclear power good for our climate? The answer to this is, compared to the alternatives, almost certainly “yes.” In contrast to coal- or natural gas-powered power plants, nuclear power plants do not produce carbon dioxide when they are operating. Every kilowatt-hour of energy generated by a nuclear plant that replaces a kilowatt-hour of energy generated by a coal- or natural gas-powered plant helps reduce global emissions, slowing the changing of the climate.

Is nuclear power good for public health? This question is more tricky. On the one hand, nuclear power plants do not produce the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and mercury emitted by burning fossil fuels. This means nuclear power plants are not associated with the respiratory and cardiovascular problems that burning of fossil fuels generate. 

While direct exposure to radioactive materials is associated with high cancer risk, there is very little evidence that living near a nuclear power plant does the same due to containment of the energy. Living near a coal power plant or natural gas power plant is much more hazardous to your health than living near a nuclear power plant.

Accident and security risks and waste disposal are the most concerning potential public health problems with nuclear power. While U.S. regulatory requirements have prevented a meltdown from happening in the United States (the closest being the near-miss at Three Mile Island) and even the more recent accident in Fukushima, Japan having no definitive casualties, Chernobyl still looms large in the public consciousness. And while domestic terrorism drives fear around security risks, the fact that the war in Ukraine has been fought so brutally and still avoided a nuclear disaster is a good sign for the energy source.

Long-term deep geological storage is the best practice in disposal of nuclear waste, but Congress’s inability to authorize a permanent repository has been a barrier to safe long-term storage.

From a sustainability perspective, nuclear power also poses challenges. The world currently has an estimated 90 years of uranium reserves. While a more abundant alternative fuel thorium is starting to be used, technological change will be needed to make nuclear sustainable in the long-term.

So let’s stop talking about whether an energy source is “green.” Let’s talk about what really matters: whether it is good for the planet, good for our health, and provides us with affordable, sustainable energy that we can use to provide for our businesses, our homes, and our families.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.