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Mon, Jul 06 2009 

Reality Check

This section is for the new Reality Check Series

Why are we hurting so?

It’s time for a reality check.: Main story, Day one....more>>

  • What it is, how it’s calculated
    Determining per capita income is a complex exercise that — at best — is a mathematical expression of a moving target.
    In its simplest terms, per capita income is, according to the Ohio Department of Development, “the income of a given area divided by the resident population of that area.” Sounds simple enough, but arriving at the figure is not.

  • Beyond wineries and covered bridges …
    An introduction to reality check

  • County part of Team NEO marketing efforts
    Ashtabula County is part of a 16-county alliance aimed at marketing the Northeast Ohio region to employers and business investors, many of have never heard of Ashtabula, let alone Mentor, Akron or Youngstown.

  • Finding work after prison nearly impossible
    A portion of Ashtabula County’s unemployed can’t find a job because of their prior address – a prison cell.

  • Bad vibes: Lack of opportunities, progress make for sour attitudes
    Eavesdrop on conversations at the lunch counter, in the aisles of Wal-Mart on a Friday evening or around the sports bar on a Sunday afternoon, and you’re likely to hear some pretty disparaging remarks about the old hometown.

  • POOR BUT WORKING
    A winter wind blew across the parking lot of the Neighbor to Neighbor Food Pantry next to St. Joseph’s Church in Ashtabula; the six adults lined up at the door turned their faces from the wind, toward the metaphoric concrete wall of the building.

  • Some people just don’t want a job
    Ashtabula County Commissioner Deborah Newcomb talks to a lot of employers, and they all express the same concern: finding people reliable people with basic skills is a problem.

  • Crime & Drugs Inc. always hiring
    Some “unemployed” residents find crime to be their best source of steady income. Judge Richard Stevens of Western County Court says he noticed a 50-percent increase in the number of criminal cases handled by his court between 2005 and last year.

  • County's largest hospital feels the Medicaid pain
    Perhaps no one in Ashtabula County feels the pinch of subsidizing unemployed or underemployed individuals more than Philip E. Pawlowski.

  • Taxpayers bearing the brunt
    When payday came for Ashtabula County’s 102,703 residents in 2005, taxpayers wrote 25.5 percent of the total.

  • Payday loan shops find fertile ground in county’s low per capita income landscape
    One of the fastest growing industries in Ashtabula County is payday or cash advance loan stores, which are popping up in strip malls and shopping plazas all over the county.

  • Doing the math: Tourism’s paychecks are small but written with ‘fresh’ money
    Tourism is touted as the new up-and-coming industry in Ashtabula County, a quadripartite savior with wineries, the lodge, Lake Erie and covered bridges for legs.

  • Our lost retail dollars
    Google these words: “Ashtabula County retail per capita.”

  • Ashtabula County: A comfortable place to be poor?
    Have social service agencies and Uncle Sam done their job so well in Ashtabula County that they’ve created a haven for the disabled, indolent, drug-addicted and/or unmotivated?

  • AMHA, Section 8 get bad rap
    The availability of subsidized housing is often implicated as one of the most powerful inducements for people to come to Ashtabula County and live off the dole. It’s a line Jim Noyes, executive director of the Ashtabula Metropolitan Housing Authority (AMHA) often hears, just as the authority gets blamed for the state of all the county’s housing.

  • Let’s set the record straight on this Appalachian-values thing
    One of the many frustrations of being a writer is that what is written is often misconstrued by the reader. Another is that the reader will assume that because the writer quotes someone, the writer personally accepts that observation as gospel and agrees with its premise.

  • Foreclosed!
    Paul Bryant is fascinated by statistics, especially those dealing with the housing market in Ashtabula, Lake, Geauga and Cuyahoga counties.

  • Reality Check
    A policy paper by Catholic Charities USA, “Poverty in America: A Threat to the Common Good,” observes that since 1980, increased worker productivity has not resulted in real increased wage gains. Workers have been working harder and being more productive for their employers, but, generally, they have not shared in the bountiful harvest.

  • Every day a reality check at city’s ‘poorest’ school
    Janie Carey works at the intersection of poverty and education.

  • School statistics reflect low wages
    To grasp how pervasive low-wages and poverty are in Ashtabula, take a look at the state report cards for the buildings in the Ashtabula Area City School District.

  • County fails to make higher-education grade
    When it comes to higher education, Ashtabula County is at the bottom of the class.

  • County’s brightest students set their sights on other towns, states after graduating from college

  • Older worker struggles with job scarcity
    Finding a job in Ashtabula County can be tough; being 64 and finding a job is nearly impossible.

  • Nordic Air a JEDD success story
    While 2008 is shaping up to be a gloomy landscape for the national economy, things are looking good at Nordic Air in Harpersfield Township.

  • DRIVING FOR DOLLARS
    To get a picture of the direction that economic opportunity has taken in northeast Ohio, watch the flow of traffic on Interstate 90 in the early-morning hours.

  • Exchange-rate shift makes us attractive to Canadian investors
    Help for Ashtabula County’s economy is coming from north of the border.

  • Partnership for economic prosperity
    When it comes to economic development in Ashtabula County, the buck stops at the doorstep of 17 N. Market St.,

  • Looking for the jobs
    Back in 2001, Joseph Mayernick, executive director of Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County, told a reporter for the Business Journal that his organization had, in 11 years, retained 4,000 jobs and created more than 14,000 in Ashtabula County.

  • Life on $7.75 an hour
    Sherry Allums talked her husband, Roy, into selling their house in Euclid and moving to Ashtabula County so their grandson, Dylan Christian, could attend better schools.

  • Sale of factory to Canadian firm a loss-loss for creditors
    Growth Partnership for Ashtabula calls the sale of NEO Plastics to RTS Companies of Canada a “win-win situation” for RTS Companies (U.S.) Inc. and Ashtabula County.

  • Quit your belly aching
    Quit bickering. Accentuate the positive. Re-invent the area. Get educated.

  • Growth Partnership's IRS forms
    As a 501(c)(3) organization, Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County is required to file a 990 form with the Internal Revenue Service. These returns are public documents. This link will download a pdf of the 2005 990 return, the most recent one posted at guidestar.com.

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