| New aid for jobless based on old data Stimulus money uses flawed formula Wednesday, June 10, 2009 3:07 AM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH DispatchPolitics
More than $100 million in federal stimulus money designed to provide summer jobs for young Ohioans and help laid-off workers find new jobs is intended to offer immediate aid to people stuck in the economic moment. But much of the money is based on federal formulas that rely on out-of-date statistics, including poverty rates that are 9 years old and unemployment rates from before the recession hit. That means the amount of money going to the state's 20 "work force investment" areas has little connection to the number of unemployed people searching for work there today. Depending on where summer job-seekers or the unemployed live, the agency designated to help them is getting as little as $110 per unemployed worker or as much as $295. "We understand that the numbers that are used in the input do not reflect current economic trends, but they are regulated by the federal government," said Brian Baker, assistant bureau chief in the state's Bureau of Labor Market Information. Divided evenly among the state's unemployed, the $102 million in stimulus money that the Ohio Department of Job and Family Service distributed to regional work force agencies would amount to $170 per person, based on the state's April jobless numbers. In Franklin County, the Central Ohio Workforce Investment Corp. received $7 million in stimulus money, doubling the federal money available to the jobs program this year. That's about $141 per unemployed worker in the county. At $170 per worker, Franklin County would receive nearly $1.5 million more. Cuyahoga County would lose $4.1 million at $170 per unemployed worker. As it stands, Cuyahoga County's work force agency received $13.7 million, about $242 per unemployed worker. That doesn't bother Suzanne Coleman-Tolbert, president of the Central Ohio Workforce Investment Corp. "We're very fortunate here in central Ohio," she said. "Our unemployment rate has gone up, but there are still jobs to be had." Franklin County's unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in April, up from 4.6 percent a year earlier, but it remains among the lowest in the state. Cuyahoga County's rate is 9 percent, up from 6 percent a year earlier. Coleman-Tolbert said her office also needs fewer resources to retrain each worker because they are less likely than those laid off in Cuyahoga County to switch from manufacturing jobs to service and financial positions, which require more training. "An individual who's worked for GM 25 or 30 years, they'll have to retool those skills." She must use about half the stimulus money to provide minimum-wage summer jobs to 2,500 people ages 14 to 24. Last year, the program helped 1,000 find summer jobs. The rest will help more than 2,000 out-of-work adults with several training programs. That amount includes $278,317 for a "Jobs Mobile," a bus that can take the corporation's services to the neighborhoods and work sites where they're needed. In April, there were 50,200 people seeking work in Franklin County, according to state statistics. Despite the disparities, Coleman-Tolbert and other Workforce Investment leaders across Ohio say they're satisfied with their share of the stimulus money. "The formula is what it is, and it was applied fairly, and we have adequate resources to deal with our situation," said Tim McCourtie, director of the Ohio Area 8 One Stop Employment and Training Network. His agency serves a four-county area in west-central Ohio and received the lowest amount of stimulus money per job seeker: $110. Of more concern is an expected plunge in Ohio's allocation of non-stimulus work force money in the next funding year, which starts July 1, said Bert Cene, co-chairman of the state association for directors of work force investment boards. Not only do federal formulas affect how money is distributed within each state, they also determine how much federal money each state receives from the U.S. Department of Labor. Because states such as Nevada and Florida have had skyrocketing unemployment rates recently, he said, they'll receive a larger share this time. That will cost Ohio about $34 million, said Robin Rice, program administrator for the Ohio Office of Workforce Development. This funding year, the state received $174 million; next year, $140 million. "We anticipated stimulus plus our normal allocation, so we actually have less money than we thought," said Cene, who oversees the work force agency for Columbiana and Mahoning counties. "We're going to be beefing up and expanding and then slowing back down again." Whether it comes from the stimulus or the annual federal allocation, much of the money for youth and adult jobs programs in Ohio is allocated based on unemployment rates more than a year old, Rice said. Stimulus money was distributed based on an average of the monthly rates from July 2007 through June 2008, months before the economy took a dive in September. Another major factor is poverty rates. That number, under federal rules, comes from the 2000 Census, Price said. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated poverty rates for counties as recently as 2007. In 2000, Franklin County's poverty rate was 11.6 percent. By 2007 it had almost doubled to 21.3 percent. Cuyahoga County's 2000 poverty rate was 13.1 percent. In 2007, the Census Bureau estimated it at 23.3 percent. States can use the federal formula or the governor can set his own standard after a lengthy public process, Rice said. Ohio always has used the federal formula for the youth and adult jobs programs. The stimulus package, approved in February, left little time for a change. The state previously had set its own standard for a third program that focuses on workers who lost their jobs in a plant closing or layoff, she said. The state looks at the number of people seeking work for more than 15 weeks to determine how to allocate 55 percent of the money for dislocated workers. Officials averaged monthly numbers from calendar year 2008, Rice said. The next biggest factor measures the number of unemployed people in areas where the unemployment rate is higher than the state average. For the stimulus distribution, that was counted from Oct. 1, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2008, Rice said. "For Franklin County during that time period, its unemployment wasn't more than the state average, whereas Cuyahoga's was." |
Happy 4th of July 2010 !!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
New aid for jobless based on old data Stimulus money uses flawed formula
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