Ohio’s exceptional libraries are an economic driver

Ohio House leaders released a range of changes in their substitute budget bill last week. Gov. DeWine’s cannabis, gambling, and tobacco tax increases were out, and his proposed child tax credit was removed. The bill also included tax cuts for coal mining, a new tax expenditure to support anti-abortion advocacy centers, and many other changes to tax, budget, and other policy areas.

Maybe the most historic change introduced in the new bill, however, was a proposal to eliminate the state’s public library fund, which has funded Ohio’s library system for the past 100 years.

To be clear, this is not a total elimination of public library support, just the fund. The new bill folds the special line item into the state’s general revenue fund. The proposed House budget still provides public library funding from the general revenue fund, though it does cut the governor’s proposal to fund libraries by 9% — a $100 million reduction.

Ohio ranks near the middle of the pack on a lot of metrics. Its library system is not one of those. Ohioans visit their libraries 3.41 times a year on average — second highest among all states across the country. The average Ohioan checks out over 12 books a year — more than any other state in the country. Two-thirds of Ohioans have a library card, which puts it second among states in that category.

In the early days of my firm Scioto Analysis, I pondered a lot about market failure. Okay, I still do, but at the time I had a lot fewer clients to keep me occupied. I recall being on the phone with my benefit-cost analysis professor from graduate school asking him what services libraries provide to correct market failures.

At the time, I was very focused on circulation: how does provision of books help correct market failures?

What I missed at the time was right in front of me. I built Scioto Analysis at the library. I would bike there daily to have a place to work away from home. I would reserve conference rooms so I had places where I could have in-person or online meetings. I used their computers to do work and had a place to print RFP responses — a nice resource for someone who hasn’t owned a printer in years.

Entrepreneurs aren’t the only people who benefit from libraries. A study out this year in the American Economic Journal found investments in public libraries lead to increased test scores for children who lived nearby. This means libraries are also helping build tomorrow’s workforce.

Economist Howard Fleeter estimates Ohio’s libraries provided physical and electronic circulation, computer and technology services, reference services, programs, and other services to the tune of a total value of $3.1 billion in 2019. Comparing this to the total operating cost of the system of $780 million, Fleeter estimates the system generates about $4 in economic benefits for every $1 in operating expenses.

There are certainly other benefits to public libraries. Services to low-income people and people struggling with housing security, as a place for children to spend time after school, and civic benefits from people having a place to be around others free of charge are all values of the library. The economic benefits are real, however, and they could be threatened by proposed cuts at the state level.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.

Is data a public good?

If you’ve read any amount of news over the past three months you are probably aware that President Trump has enabled Elon Musk and the new Department of Governmental Efficiency to fire employees across the federal government. As I’ve written about before, one of the things we stand to lose in the face of this dramatic scale back of the federal government is access to high quality public data

A recent U.S. Economic Experts Panel explored the impacts of this impending loss of data. The general consensus of the panel was that scaling back the number of federal statisticians who collected and reported this data would have negative consequences. One thing that stood out to me as I skimmed through the responses was one comment written by Erik Hurst from the University of Chicago. He said “To make good policy, data is needed to understand how the economy is currently performing and to examine potential key economic variables that are changing. The data is a public good and is not otherwise provided by the private sector.”

This comment essentially echoes the point of my blog post, but the last sentence sticks out to me. “The data is a public good” is a rather strong claim. 

A public good is not just something that the government provides, it refers to a classification system that economists use to understand how goods are traded in markets. In this classification system, goods need to be either rival or non-rival, and either excludable or non-excludable. 

A good is rival if one person’s consumption of that good prevents another person from consuming it. Most day-to-day purchases are rival. If I go and buy a bike at the local shop, that prevents someone else from buying and also benefiting from that bike. Roads are an example of a non-rival good. In most circumstances, one person driving their car on a road does not prevent another person from also using and benefiting from that road. 

A good is excludable if it is possible to prevent someone from using it. Anything you buy in a store is excludable, because the producer can wait until you give them money to allow you to benefit from it. An example of a non-excludable good would be something like trees on a street. Everyone benefits from the added shade of trees, and there is no way to prevent people from benefiting. 

For something to be a public good, it needs to be both non-rival and non-excludable. If you think about what those two things mean together, it makes sense why the government should be providing these goods. Non-excludable means there is no way for a private firm to profit from providing this good, and non-rival means there isn’t a limit on how many people can use a good. 

Unlike private firms that would not be able to raise any sort of revenue from providing these goods, the government has the ability to collect taxes, essentially charging everyone and spreading the burden of paying for these goods across the population. We even see taxes for specific public goods, such as gasoline taxes that help pay for roads. 

So, does Census data qualify as a public good? 

First, Census data is certainly non-rival. My ability to download a spreadsheet does not prevent anyone else from doing the same. Is Census data non-excludable, that requires some more thought. 

For private firms that do data collection, data can certainly be excludable to some extent. Companies can require people to pay to access their data, and they can require some agreement that prevents data sharing. For context, non-rival, excludable goods are called “club goods.”

While it is technically possible for the Census Bureau to adopt this business model, it would essentially amount to adding a user tax on data. However when we increase taxes on a good, people consume it less than they otherwise would in a tax-free market. This can be a good thing if a good creates negative externalities, but as someone who works for a company whose mission is in part to “provide policymakers and policy influencers with evidence-based analysis of pressing public problems,” I believe that it is clear that this type of data has a ton of positive externalities. 

The basic rules of microeconomic theory suggest that turning Census data into a club good would reduce the total benefits people are getting in our economy. We all benefit from good access to public data. The upside to making sure that high quality data remains a public good is extremely clear: it helps us create better policies and make better decisions.

How discriminatory legislation contributes to brain drain

For me, the experience is visceral—a flush of heat in my neck and cheeks, a rush of shame, sweaty palms, a quickened heartbeat. These physiological responses surface every time I enter a public restroom. I keep my head down and don’t make eye contact with anyone for any reason. I avoid restrooms when children are present, fearing accusations and confrontation. I am transgender. 

There’s something profoundly unsettling about your state legislating where you can and cannot use the restroom. It goes beyond “no women in the men’s room” to “no trans people in public.” That is the desired effect of these laws, and they work. 

I no longer participate in public life the way I used to. I don’t attend sporting events or theatre productions, and I only eat out at restaurants with gender-neutral restrooms, a fact I need to research in advance. I find myself keeping money in my wallet that I otherwise would have spent, had I felt welcome in public. 

Very few white Americans will understand the intense melancholy of being legislated against, of having your state restrict where you can live, work, and contribute. It certainly depletes my state pride. 

So I’m leaving Ohio. 

And I’m not alone. 

I’m moving with my wife and we are joined by her father, sister, and brother. Our family represents a combined 8 undergraduate degrees and 3.5 graduate degrees leaving the state of Ohio. 

This is a concrete manifestation of Ohio’s self-inflicted brain drain resulting from anti-transgender legislation.

While this is our family’s experience, this is a wider phenomenon than just us. The problem with discriminatory legislation (and lack of protections for minorities) is that it increases the cost of living in a certain community relative to other communities. This phenomenon has been studied in Ohio for over a decade, with a survey conducted by researchers at Wright State University revealing that LGBT marriage equality laws, LGBT anti-discrimination employment laws, and LGBT anti-discrimination housing laws, were important factors for college students considering whether to leave Ohio.

Living in a state that legally sanctions discrimination levies significant costs on families, especially considering nearby alternatives. 14 states and the District of Columbia currently have “sanctuary laws,” for transgender people designed to protect access to gender-affirming healthcare services. These fourteen states include Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland. 

It can be hard to estimate the number of transgender individuals living in a state. LGBTQIA+ people have concerns around data privacy when disclosing such personal information as gender identity or sexual orientation. Especially given recent concerns around data privacy at the federal level, this data gap is unlikely to close soon. 

Generally we estimate transgender people to make up half to one percent of the total population. That means that there could be anywhere from 59,400-118,800 total transgender people in the state of Ohio. According to the Data for Social Progress survey results, 8% of transgender people reported already moving, a potential loss of 4,700-9,500 Ohioans. 

An analysis from McKinsey and Company found that cisgender employees make 32% more money per year than transgender employees, even when the latter have similar or higher education levels. Despite the small size of the transgender population and the relatively small impact we have on the economy, many states continue to push anti-transgender legislation. McKinsey’s analysis found that annual consumer spending could actually grow by $12 billion annually following concerted efforts to increase employment and wage equity for transgender people.

Discrimination against transgender people has wide-ranging effects on the economy. For example, a white paper from the Sports, Events, and Tourism Association published evidence from the Texas Association of Business that discriminatory anti-trans legislation could result in an estimated economic loss to Texas’ gross domestic product ranging from $964 million to $8.5 billion.

Despite the promise of economic growth, Ohio has continued to legislate against LGBTQIA+ residents. The evidence shows this will worsen Ohio’s brain drain problem and hamper Ohio’s economy.

Another likely unanticipated effect of this legislation is the self-inflicted brain drain Ohio perpetuates with these laws.

I have a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa and many hours of advanced graduate course work from the Ohio State University. My wife has a bachelor’s degree from Otterbein University and is a licensed educator. We both work full-time jobs, volunteer regularly, and contribute essential grassroots support to the homeless individuals in our communities. But we’ve decided Ohio is no longer a place we want to call home, because its laws don’t want us here. 

So we are taking our college degrees, my father-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law in addition to two of our closest friends to Chicago, where Illinois has made it clear that we will all be welcome. 

This isn’t just about individual choices; it’s about broader economic implications. Policies that are unwelcoming to certain populations don’t just push out those directly affected—they also drive entire communities to leave. When people relocate, they take their expertise, their purchasing power, and their tax dollars with them.

As we prepare to leave Ohio, I'm keenly aware that our departure represents more than just a personal decision—it's emblematic of a larger exodus that has significant human and economic costs. 

Ohio's human capital loss will be Illinois’s human capital gain. I'm moving toward a future where I won't need to calculate the risk of using a public restroom. Time will tell: was the political victory of targeting a vulnerable population worth the cost of driving away educated, productive citizens and their families?

Which U.S. states are growing the most?

"Population growth and human ingenuity go hand in hand. More people means more minds, more innovation, and ultimately, more solutions to the world's challenges."

— Julian Simon, Economist

When state policymakers wring their hands about population growth, they are channeling Simon. Population growth means more people buying goods, more employees, more people starting businesses, and more people paying taxes. While there have been states that have been able to maintain high quality of life despite a plateauing population (looking at you, Vermont), many state leaders are interested in population growth as an indicator of a state’s health.

In 2024 the Pew Charitable Trusts released a map which details the changes in population over the past fifteen years. Let’s take a look at which states are succeeding the most on this metric of state health.. 

1. Utah

Over the last 15 years, the fastest growing state in the country is Utah. Utah has seen a 1.68% increase in population yearly between 2009-2023. Historically, the rise in Utah’s population was primarily attributable to natural increase, or annual births minus annual deaths. Now, interstate migration is contributing significantly to the state’s growth. Growth in Utah and Salt Lake Counties accounted for 64% of statewide population growth in the last year. As Salt Lake County becomes more expensive, more people are settling slightly farther out from the city in the Provo area. 

Three of the top five fastest-growing states seem to be growing at least partly due to wildfires and the rising cost of living sweeping the western sea board. In August of 2024, the NIH released a study finding that “wildfires were only associated with heightened out-migration in tracts that experienced the highest levels of structure loss.” Still more alarming were the findings by Nature Communications that in the last two decades, “only the most extreme wildfires (258+ structures destroyed) influenced migration patterns.” The increasing frequency and severity of wildfires on the west coast contributes significantly to the population change experienced there.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there have been nearly 15,000 wildfires since January 1, 2025. These fires have burned almost 400,000 acres across the United States. This is already above the 10-year average of nearly 8,800 wildfires per year. 

The UCLA Anderson School of Management found that Los Angeles County rents were slightly higher after wildfires. Decreased housing supplies, increased fire risk, and rising insurance rates give workers reason to emigrate. As fewer houses remained standing after the fires, an increased demand for housing must compete with the decreased supply, and prices rose. Displaced families are moving to interior states like Utah in search of safe, affordable housing. 

2. Idaho

Idaho is the second fastest growing state in the country. Between 2009-2023 the state grew by 430,000 residents. More than 17,300 of these new residents came from Washington, just barely more than the 17,000 from California. About 7,000 of these new Idaho residents came from Oregon. Because these individuals are moving from more expensive states, 50% of newcomers own a home within a year. Meridian, a suburb of Boise, has grown the fastest over this time period. 

3. Texas

The third fastest-growing state is Texas. Texas has experienced a large population increase due to international immigration. In 2022, more than 1,000 migrants per day crossed into the state of Texas. Domestic migration also significantly increased Texas’s population—most of these new residents hailed from California. Interstate migrants were attracted by the state’s affordability and job opportunities. 

4. Florida

Florida is the fourth fastest growing state in the country. Florida has not had the same wild-fire impacts as states like Utah and Idaho. Rather, Florida’s rise in population has largely come from international migration. In 2024, there were 411,322 new Florida residents who came from other countries. Overall, there were 23 million people living in Florida, with an increase of 467,000 people over 2023. Due to the older population in the state, Florida was one of 17 states that had more deaths than births. 

5. Nevada

In fifth place is Nevada. Between 2009-2023, Nevada experienced 1.24% population growth per year. Since 2018, about 48,000 new residents cross into the state each year. According to the Reno Gazette Journal, the state is anticipated to reach 4 million residents by the year 2043.

Overall, two trends seem to be driving growth in the fastest-growing states. With rising prices and more frequent, intense environmental disasters battering the west coast, Americans are voting with their feet and seeking safer, more affordable homes in inland western states like Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. Opportunities in the United States are driving people from other countries to come to states like Florida and Texas. We will have to see how changing dynamics in housing and immigration will impact these trends over the next fifteen years.

Do carbon prices actually work?

Carbon prices have been suggested as a tool for mitigating climate change for decades now, but despite many countries adopting official carbon prices and implementing cap and trade programs, there is very little empirical evidence about how effective these programs are at actually mitigating global climate change.

The main reason this question is difficult to answer is due to leakage. Because climate change is a global problem, local reductions in carbon emissions could be offset by increased emissions elsewhere. We might expect this to happen in places where a carbon tax is implemented because it would be marginally less expensive to outsource high pollution industries to places with fewer restrictions. 

Last week, a new article made progress on answering this question. 

These researchers looked at the impact of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, a cap-and-trade plan implemented in 2005. While a cap-and-trade program and a more straightforward carbon tax are technically different, they achieve the same goal theoretically. 

Both of these setups encourage industries to adapt their methods to reduce their carbon emissions, and provide a bonus incentive for industries that can adapt at lower costs. Both policy choices result in polluters having to pay some cost for their carbon emissions.

To understand whether or not carbon prices were truly lowering global carbon emissions, these researchers looked at three possible channels of leakage. First, they explored whether or not firms were outsourcing their carbon intensive parts of their production chain to places with fewer regulations. They concluded that this was not a major factor because if this were happening, firms would have reduced value added to the economy. 

To understand value added, consider a car manufacturer. If the manufacturer imports all of the individual components of a car and then assembles it, their value added comes from the labor used to assemble the car. If this firm decided they needed to dodge regulations and switched to importing mostly assembled cars that they just had to put the finishing touches on, then we’d see that in the value added. 

When these researchers looked at data from French manufacturers, they found that value added did not substantially decrease, nor did the carbon intensity of their imports increase. This suggests that instead these manufacturers were changing their practices to lower their emissions without relying on increased pollution from outside the regulation’s jurisdiction.

The second avenue for carbon leakage would be if consumers switched to purchasing goods from unregulated firms. If this were happening, there would be economic contraction among the regulated firms as they would have to face increased competition from unregulated firms. Again, among the French manufacturers there was no such trend. 

The final channel for leakage would be if firms operating multiple facilities could shift their production in such a way that more production was happening in unregulated facilities. To account for this they performed their analysis at the firm level, so they would have directly observed any shifting of pollution that was not captured by the regulation. The researchers found no evidence of this.

It’s easy to see that carbon prices reduce local pollution, but it is encouraging to see new evidence to support the idea that this is actually making a global difference. Evidence like this should make local policymakers worried about the impact of leakage more confident that prices placed on carbon locally will lead to global results for slowing climate change.

Two ways policymakers are trying to reshape Medicaid in Ohio

Medicaid is one of the largest health care programs in the state of Ohio. This federal health care program for low-income families and children pays for more than one in five hospital visits and provides health care coverage for over three million Ohio residents–more than a quarter of the state population.

Medicaid was created over half a century ago as part of the 1965 Great Society amendments to the Social Security Act. Originally granting public health insurance coverage to children, pregnant women, retirement-age people, and people with disabilities, Medicaid was expanded in the 1980s to allow more state flexibility and expand eligibility to pregnant women and children regardless of welfare status.

While Medicaid dodged the chopping block that other public assistance programs faced during welfare reform in the 1990s, the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act introduced cost-sharing measures and gave states more flexibility to design benefits, allowing premium charges and service-specific copayments for some populations. The Affordable Care Act in 2010 expanded Medicaid to cover nearly all adults with incomes under 138% of the federal poverty level, but a 2012 Supreme Court decision relegated that coverage to state discretion.

All this has led to a system of low-income health coverage that is heavily dependent on decisions made by state policymakers.

In the state of Ohio, over half of the state General Revenue Fund is designated to Medicaid spending. This has made the program a focus for policymakers interested in reducing state spending.

In the proposed state budget, the Governor has included two provisions that could reduce the state’s spending on Medicaid.

Work Requirements

Medicaid has not traditionally been a program that requires its recipients to work. Since it was originally targeted at pregnant women, children, people with disabilities, and retirement-age people, work requirements were not much of a consideration even during the welfare reform era of the 1990s.

During the first Trump Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services started approving waivers for state governments to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. While the Trump Administration approved the request for 13 states, only Arkansas fully implemented the requirements before they were struck down by a federal judge. In Arkansas, about 18,000 people lost health care coverage under the requirements. About half of cases closed were due to problems with communication, with red tape causing thousands of Arkansas residents to lose health care coverage.

Ohio was one of the thirteen states that were approved by the first Trump Administration to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. More than a month before President Trump took office in January of this year, the state Department of Medicaid had applied for a waiver from the federal Department of Health and Human Services to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. The state estimates 61,000 Ohio residents could lose health coverage under the work requirements. The Center for Community Solutions, a Cleveland-based health and human services think tank, estimates the number of people who could lose their health insurance under work requirements could be as high as 450,000.

Medicaid Expansion Repeal “Trigger”

When Medicaid was expanded under the Affordable Care Act, one of the bill’s provisions was to have the federal government cover 90% of Medicaid spending for this newly-eligible group of low-income people. This was meant to ensure the group continued to receive medical coverage without overly burdening state budgets.

This provision became even more important when the Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion an optional element of the Affordable Care Act. One of the largest selling points for states deciding whether to allow coverage of these residents was that nine dollars would be coming into the state for every dollar they spent–a pretty good investment of state dollars.

A total of 41 states have now expanded Medicaid. Most of the states which have not expanded eligibility are in the South. Ohio expanded Medicaid under the Kasich administration and as of February 2025, 770,000 Ohioans receive health care coverage under that expansion program.

A number of states, however, have also adopted laws that make this health care coverage contingent on continuing support from the federal government. A total of 12 states have implemented “trigger language” that would automatically revoke health care coverage from people covered under the Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid if the federal match drops below 90%. About 4.2 million Medicaid recipients across the country would lose coverage if these trigger laws were invoked at the same time. Governor DeWine’s budget includes a provision to have Ohio join this list, making it the 13th state to include trigger language if the federal government reduces its match.

This is especially salient right now as Congress is debating an extension of the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, the signature legislative accomplishment of the first Trump Administration. Cuts to pay for federal spending increases would have to come from somewhere, and Medicaid is one of the top targets of Congress today. Reducing the federal match rate could be an easy way for Congress to cut spending on Medicaid across the country and free up space for federal tax cuts. This would mean removing health care coverage for 770,000 people in Ohio to pay for federal tax cuts.

What do these mean?

Both of these changes to Medicaid policy in Ohio would mean fewer people with health coverage in the state. Ohio currently has 94% of its residents with health insurance. Medicaid is the most common non-employer form of health insurance in the state, covering more Ohio residents than Medicare, individual insurance, and military insurance combined.

Both of these policies could remove coverage for the 770,000 Ohioans who receive health insurance due to Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion led to more preventative measures like colon cancer screening and HIV testing, so loss of coverage may lead to more serious disease among low-income state residents. It also led to less use of emergency room care, which suggests reduction of coverage may lead to more crowded emergency rooms and costs shifted onto the public. Loss of insurance also leads to financial instability. That is the purpose of insurance, after all: to pool risk and reduce financial exposure of people to one of life’s most dangerous contingencies–threats to our health.

Ohio economists optimistic about impact of free school lunch

In a survey released this morning by Scioto Analysis, 14 of 17 economists surveyed agreed that universal free school lunches will improve student outcomes such as test scores and graduation rates, with three uncertain of the impact and none disagreeing with the statement.. This comes after Senate Bill 109 was introduced last month, a bipartisan bill that would offer free breakfast and lunch to all children in Ohio’s public and charter schools. If passed, this bill will cost the state an estimated $300 million.

“There is an abundant body of literature that finds that universal free school lunches not only improve average test scores and overall academic performance (Gordanier et al. 2020 among others), but also reduce suspensions (Gordon and Ruffini 2018)” wrote Will Georgic from Ohio Wesleyan. “While not every student's academic achievement will improve, the average effect for all students will be unambiguously positive.”

14 of 17 respondents also agreed that universal free school lunches would promote equitable outcomes in Ohio’s K-12 education system. Jonathan Andreas from Bluffton University wrote “Universal benefits are more equitable than means-tested benefits because they literally treat everyone the same.  They increase equitability of social status by eliminating the stigma of singling out the needy for special help.  They also increase equality of opportunity by eliminating a high shadow-tax-rate whereby higher earned income can be completely ‘taxed’ away by radically reduced benefits thereby eliminating the marginal incentive to increase earnings.  The tradeoff is that they are a lot more expensive to fund than means-tested benefits, so they are a relatively inefficient way to increase equity.”

The one respondent who disagreed that universal lunch would improve equitable outcomes was Michael Jones from the University of Cincinnati. He considered the impact of providing free breakfast as well, writing: “Encouraging children to eat breakfast at school rather than at home shifts parental responsibilities to government programs. This sends the message that providing basic needs such as food is something families can opt out of rather than prioritize. Parents who value family time together should not be put at a financial disadvantage simply because they do not use a free school breakfast. Families are strengthened when children see their parents taking care of them.”

The Ohio Economic Experts Panel is a panel of over 30 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.

Which state workforces rely the most on immigrants?

With immigration grabbing the headlines in the United States, the potential loss of state workforce has economists wringing their hands. . A study conducted during the election last year as a joint effort between the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Niskanen Center analyzed alternative immigration policies under a potential Harris administration and a potential Trump Administration.

In this study, the three think tanks analyzed what gross domestic product could look like under the two administrations. Under a Harris Administration, their analysis projected anywhere from a tenth of a percentage point increase to a tenth of a percentage point decrease in GDP. That may not seem like a lot, but from a baseline of about $29 trillion, that means about $29 billion either way based on the policy decisions of the administration.

The range of decisions projected under the Trump Administration were even larger. They projected anywhere from a tenth of a percentage point decrease in GDP to four-tenths of a percentage point decrease. That means anywhere from $29 billion to $117 billion in lost GDP under Trump immigration policy scenarios.

While it is yet to be seen how much of a drag the Trump Administration immigration policy with have on the U.S. economy, the administration has doubled down on its commitment to mass deportation policy, suggesting economic losses in the United States will likely be on the high end.

We have posed questions to our Ohio Economic Experts Panel about how mass deportation will impact the Ohio economy. In November of last year, 14 of 20 Ohio economists we asked believed mass deportations would reduce gross state product. In April, earlier that year, 17 of 19 said immigration helped counteract Ohio’s brain drain. If Ohio’s economy drops in proportion to its foreign-born population, it stands to lose anywhere from $330 million to $1.3 billion in gross state product due to mass deportations. This not only means fewer people working for businesses and purchasing goods and services, it also means reduced tax revenue for state and local governments.

The impact of mass deportations will be felt unevenly. From my vantage point here in Ohio, I am in a state that is squarely in the bottom half of the country when it comes to the percentage of workers who are foreign-born (about 6% according to American Community Survey data). Some states, especially some of the U.S.’s largest states, have workforces that are over a quarter foreign-born. Below is a table of each of the states ranked by the percentage of their workforce that is foreign-born.

State	Native Workers	Foreign-Born Workers	Percentage Foreign Workers
California	12,539,284	6,169,684	33%
New Jersey	3,275,151	1,372,134	30%
New York	6,943,299	2,625,782	27%
Florida	7,445,333	2,770,246	27%
Nevada	1,113,674	359,744	24%
Hawaii	520,080	148,152	22%
Texas	11,037,800	3,108,474	22%
Massachusetts	2,905,380	781,084	21%
Maryland	2,476,434	656,236	21%
Washington	3,038,934	742,912	20%
Connecticut	1,483,008	351,627	19%
Illinois	5,107,664	1,143,398	18%
Rhode Island	458,575	96,981	17%
Virginia	3,535,477	721,017	17%
Arizona	2,793,197	545,911	16%
Georgia	4,373,228	758,511	15%
Delaware	415,788	66,278	14%
Oregon	1,788,710	261,064	13%
New Mexico	800,879	110,867	12%
Colorado	2,692,830	359,021	12%
North Carolina	4,409,315	584,177	12%
Utah	1,483,755	190,768	11%
Minnesota	2,666,414	321,281	11%
Alaska	301,929	36,306	11%
Nebraska	921,274	97,389	10%
Kansas	1,318,018	135,752	9%
Pennsylvania	5,735,658	583,997	9%
Oklahoma	1,649,611	160,092	9%
Michigan	4,305,985	406,668	9%
Idaho	825,896	70,409	8%
Indiana	3,045,994	256,285	8%
Arkansas	1,225,421	102,248	8%
Tennessee	3,048,347	252,346	8%
South Carolina	2,206,550	180,895	8%
Iowa	1,509,726	119,703	7%
New Hampshire	691,604	53,760	7%
Ohio	5,336,548	357,748	6%
Louisiana	1,888,719	124,392	6%
Kentucky	1,910,564	122,496	6%
North Dakota	380,463	24,204	6%
Wisconsin	4,488,911	282,363	6%
Missouri	2,806,505	168,685	6%
South Dakota	433,717	23,936	5%
Alabama	2,112,897	115,748	5%
Vermont	321,182	16,276	5%
Maine	657,639	30,537	4%
Wyoming	442,807	19,429	4%
Mississippi	1,206,731	39,930	3%
Montana	524,086	14,728	3%
West Virginia	723,049	16,959	2%

Table 1: Foreign-born workforce by state, data from American Community Survey

California is the state with not only the most foreign-born workers (6.2 million), but also the largest percentage of foreign-born workers, with about a third of workers in the state coming from another country. California relies heavily on foreign-born workers in service, construction, production, and transportation occupations. This means California’s agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and wholesale trade and warehousing industries are heavily reliant on foreign-born workers. California is also heavily dependent on foreign-born workers in its professional services industry. California’s foreign-born population is mostly from Latin America and Asia, with about 89% of the population coming from those two regions of the world.

The state that is the second most reliant on foreign-born workers is located on the opposite side of the country–New Jersey. About three in ten workers in New Jersey are foreign-born, about 1.4 million foreign-born workers in the state. New Jersey’s agriculture industry is not as dependent on foreign-born workers as California’s, but other sectors like construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, warehousing, and professional services are disproportionately supported by foreign-born workers. About half (48%) of New Jersey’s foreign-born population is from Latin America, about a third (32%) are from Asia and most of the rest are from Europe (13%) and Africa (6%).

Right next to New Jersey comes the third state on our list, New York. New York’s 2.6 million foreign-born workers make up over a quarter of the state workforce. Foreign-born workers are actually less likely than native workers to work in agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale trade, or professional services. Foreign-born workers in New York are disproportionately represented in the construction and warehousing industries, but also the arts, entertainment, and recreation industries. Most of New York’s foreign-born population is from Latin America (49%) and Asia (30%), but a larger proportion is from Europe (15%) than California or New Jersey can claim.

For our fourth-most foreign-born-worker-dependent state, we must go south. Florida is the highest southern state on the list with its 2.8 million foreign-born workers making up 27% of the state workforce. Foreign-born workers make up a disproportionate share of Florida’s agricultural, manufacturing, wholesale trade, and transportation industries. Florida’s foreign-born population is heavily Latin American, with over three-quarters (78%) hailing from Latin America. This compares to only 10% hailing from Asia and 7% hailing from Europe.

Rounding out the top five is the first small state to make the list, Nevada. Nevada’s 360,000 foreign-born workers make up nearly a quarter of the state workforce. Nevada relies disproportionately on foreign-born workers in its construction, transportation, and warehousing industries, but notably not in its agricultural, manufacturing, or wholesale trade industries. Where it relies most heavily on foreign-born workers is its arts, entertainment, recreation, and accommodation industry, which employs over a quarter (28%) of foreign-born workers in the state. Nevada’s foreign-born workers mainly hail from Latin America (54%), with a significant minority from Asia (32%) and some Europeans (8%).

All in all, nine states have more than one in five workers born in another country and 24 states have more than  one in ten. Mass deportations will disrupt state economies significantly, especially if they are conducted in large states with workforces heavily dependent on foreign-born workers like California, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. States impacted most severely by this policy will have to make adjustments to budgets, workforce development programs, and social safety net design to accommodate this change.

Tobacco tax increase could save tens of thousands of lives

Earlier this month, Jeremy Pelzer of Cleveland.com reported Ohio House Finance Committee Chair Brian Stewart has said the House will be removing Gov. DeWine’s proposed tobacco tax hike from the state budget.

When DeWine rolled out his child tax credit increase as the centerpiece of his final budget proposal, he assured lawmakers in the General Assembly that he would finance it with an increase to the state tobacco tax.

The tobacco tax is not necessarily tied to the child tax credit. The tax credit will be paid for partially through foregone revenue and partially through payments from the state General Revenue Fund. But the governor was trying to “show his work” that he was balancing the budget with this particular proposal.

Much breath has been lost and ink has been spilled by those critical of tobacco taxes as a financing mechanism. Meanwhile, the most powerful human impact of a tobacco tax took a backseat in the discussion: its ability to discourage smoking. 

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Smoking reigns as the number one preventable cause of death in the state of Ohio. Tobacco kills more than three times as many people as heroin in the state of Ohio every single year. This state has a special problem with it: Ohio has the 4th-highest smoking rate in the country, behind only West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. The state tobacco tax is an evidence-based strategy to discourage its use and save lives.

A 2011 report by the American Cancer Society projected the impacts of tobacco tax increases across each of the 50 states. In this report, researchers estimated the impacts of a $1-per-pack increase in tobacco tax in each of the states. This would equate to about a $1.44 increase in 2025 after accounting for inflation, which makes this study very helpful for analyzing the potential impacts of DeWine’s proposed $1.50 increase.

According to the American Cancer Society study, a tobacco tax increase would cause 59,000 adult residents of Ohio to quit smoking and prevent 72,000 youth from beginning to smoke in the first place. They also project a tobacco tax would save 56,500 lives by causing people to quit and preventing smoking habits from developing.

In addition to saving lives, the study projected the tax would reduce health care spending. This includes savings of $8.4 million in lung cancer treatment, $20.3 million in heart attack and stroke treatment, $5.7 million in Medicaid spending, and $22.2 million in smoking-related pregnancy treatment savings in the first five years of the program.

Some anti-poverty advocates worry about the potential household financial harm from a cigarette tax. In particular, people who are current smokers and unlikely to quit, especially those who are low-income, will bear the largest burden of the increased tax. To support smoking cessation, policymakers can invest funds toward evidence-based programs like tobacco quitlines and anti-smoking media campaigns. By preventing people from taking up smoking, Ohio can mitigate the impacts of health problems and the higher economic burdens imposed by tobacco taxes.

The tobacco tax is a powerful tool the state of Ohio has to reduce smoking rates, reduce medical spending, and save lives. If the general assembly cuts this program, they will be voting for more smokers and more deaths. On the other hand, if this increase makes its way back to the governor’s desk in June, we are likely to see progress on one of Ohio’s largest public health fronts.

Which states rely the most on federal employment?

With federal workers in the crosshairs of the new administration, the United States’s 2.3 million federal employees have been thrust into an era of the greatest job insecurity they’ve faced in decades.

The federal government is a large employer across the country, but jobs are distributed unevenly across the states. Below is a table of federal government employment by state as reported by the federal Office of Personnel Management.

State	Federal Employees	Federal Employees per 1,000 Workers
District of Columbia	162,489	211
Maryland	144,497	51
Hawaii	24,804	38
Virginia	147,358	34
Alaska	11,658	34
New Mexico	22,695	25
West Virginia	17,301	24
Oklahoma	42,212	24
Wyoming	6,832	23
Montana	11,353	21
Maine	12,717	19
Utah	33,961	19
South Dakota	8,940	19
Alabama	41,319	19
Rhode Island	8,598	17
Mississippi	19,690	16
Georgia	81,366	16
Washington	58,508	16
Colorado	41,167	14
North Dakota	5,736	13
Idaho	10,993	13
Missouri	37,220	12
Kansas	17,824	12
Kentucky	23,449	11
Vermont	3,368	11
Pennsylvania	66,656	11
Arizona	34,460	11
Oregon	20,952	10
South Carolina	24,863	10
Arkansas	14,269	10
North Carolina	51,900	10
Ohio	56,068	10
Nebraska	10,412	10
Louisiana	19,486	10
Tennessee	32,574	10
Florida	95,167	9
Texas	130,686	9
Nevada	13,967	9
California	150,679	8
Delaware	3,998	8
Indiana	24,499	8
Illinois	45,213	7
New Hampshire	5,208	7
Massachusetts	25,698	7
Michigan	29,822	7
Iowa	9,930	6
Minnesota	18,183	6
Wisconsin	17,946	6
New York	54,092	5
New Jersey	22,684	5
Connecticut	7,304	4

Table 1: Federal Employees by State

The top of the list is not a state at all, but the District of Columbia, where about one in five workers are employed by the federal government. This makes sense because DC is the nation’s capital and center of the federal government.

The federal government employs five percent of Maryland’s entire workforce and  three and a half percent of Virginia’s, likely due to their relative proximity to the capital.  These two states come in number one and number three respectively among U.S. states.

Maryland has a range of departments with federal offices located within it. A heavy-hitter is the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, which employs over 18,000 people who conduct, fund, and disseminate health research. The Federal Food and Drug administration, headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, employs nearly 14,000 people who inspect and monitor products and conduct research on product safety.

Virginia is another major state for federal employees. Surprisingly, its largest federal employer is not in northern Virginia near D.C., but instead in Norfolk, located in southern Virginia. The United States Fleet Forces Command, one of the major forces of the United States Navy, is headquartered at the world’s largest naval base. The base  employs over 20,000 people in Virginia. Another major employer is the Veterans Health Administration, which employs over 10,000 people in the state.

Doubling back, the state with the second-highest concentration of federal workforce is Hawaii. Despite having a total state workforce just shy of 650,000, the federal government employs nearly 25,000 people in Hawaii (3.8% of the workforce). This is largely due to naval employment: the federal government employs over 6,400 people for its naval pacific fleet and over 2,100 people for its naval facilities engineering command.

Fourth highest is Alaska, which has about three and a half percent of its workforce employed by the federal government. I wrote a lot about this state in my recent blog post about which states depend most on federal funds. Federal employment in Alaska is driven by two characteristics of the state—its massive landmass and its small population. This leads to a need for federal employees to manage airfields and public lands. Due to Alaska’s strategic position near the arctic circle and its reliance on flight as a major form of transportation, these sectors employ large numbers of Alaskans. The federal government employs nearly 1,800 people in its Pacific Air Forces and over 1,100 people in the Federal Aviation Administration. The federal government also employs nearly 900 people in Alaska for the National Park Service, nearly 800 for the Forest Service, nearly 700 for the Bureau of Land Management, and nearly 500 for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The ranking drops off considerably after the top four (or five if you count the District of Columbia), with the other 46 states having less than three percent of their workforce employed by the federal government. The next four states are rural states with (with the exception of Wyoming) elevated poverty rates. The federal government employs two and a half percent of the workforces in each of these states.

Coming in at number five is New Mexico. New Mexico has about 3,400 Veterans Health Administration employees, but also 3,200 Indian Health Service employees who provide medical care, public health services, and community health support to American Indian communities in the state. New Mexico also has 2,400 Forest Service employees, some Air Force presence, and over 900 employees for its Bureau of Indian Education.

Maryland and Virginia have large federal workforces due to their proximity to Washington, Alaska and Hawaii have large workforces due to their strategic military locations, and New Mexico does due to its large Native American population. West Virginia, at number six, has largely benefited from politics. The 2,000 West Virginians employed by the federal government’s Bureau of Fiscal Services and 1,200 employed by the Internal Revenue Service are largely located in West Virginia because of federal government decentralization in the mid-20th century and adept political maneuvering by Senator Robert Byrd, who was canny at directing funds back to his home state. West Virginia also has drawn some federal employees due to its geography. The 1,000 people employed by the Bureau of Prisons and 900 employees of the Army Corps of Engineers each take advantage of West Virginia’s mountainous terrain for their respective projects.

At number seven is Oklahoma. The federal government employs 15,000 Oklahoma residents for the Air Force Materiel Command, many at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. Another 6,000 people are employed by the Veterans Affairs Administration and 3,000 are employed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Wyoming has the eighth highest concentration of federal workers.  Due to its public lands, the federal government employs 2,700 people in Wyoming between its National Park Service, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management employees.

As the new federal administration aims to slash jobs at the federal level, states closest to Washington are likely to take the hardest hits. If they decide to slash military jobs, places like Alaska, Hawaii, and Oklahoma could face significant hits to their workforces.  If natural lands are in the crosshairs, which they seem to be, Alaska and Wyoming could be hurting. To understand how persistent these employment policy changes are, we will have to see how much these discussions play out over the next few years.