Decisive action from federal policymakers made sure that even as COVID-19 destroyed more jobs than any recession in Ohio's history, millions of people could keep food on the table and roofs over their heads. More than 800,000 Ohioans were laid off in March and April 2020 alone. By September 2021, more than 2.3 million Ohioans had received newly authorized federal Unemployment Compensation (UC), allowing many to qualify who don't ordinarily due to Ohio's narrow eligibility rules, and supplementing regular state benefits. Those programs bolstered the economy and provided a crucial lifeline to families, but Congress let them expire in early September.
By October, Ohio still had 228,600 fewer jobs than in February 2020, and was recovering jobs just half as fast as the nation. Despite the continuing need, Ohio lawmakers make it harder than all but three states to meet the earnings test to qualify for UC. Ohio's requirement that a working person be paid at least $280 per week means someone paid the minimum wage who works up to 31 hours per week will never qualify. The test is fundamentally unfair: Low pay means that the median woman working in Ohio would have to work 2.5 hours more per week than a man to qualify, and the median Black worker would have to work four hours more than their white counterpart. A worker paid less than 90% of all Ohio workers ($10.04 per hour) would have to work four times as many hours as one paid more than 90% ($45.37). The stringent pay test means...
We’ve spotted several social media posts sharing videos and stills supposedly of a power plant in Israel’s northern city of Haifa being “blown up” by an Iranian missile. While there have been repor...