Fact check: Rob Portman on Ted Strickland's economic record
January 5, 2016
By Charles Aull
In a campaign ad from April 2015, Senator Rob Portman (R) stated that while his 2016 opponent, Ted Strickland (D), was governor of Ohio, the Buckeye State’s unemployment rate surpassed 10 percent and the state lost more than 350,000 jobs.
We found that Portman’s numbers are correct, but a direct connection between Strickland and Ohio’s economic downturn between 2007 and 2011 is tenuous. The economists we talked to said that governors rarely have a significant impact on a state’s economy in the short term. In addition, a global recession began in late 2007, causing widespread unemployment and job losses throughout the country, especially in large manufacturing states like Ohio.
Background
Ted Strickland served as the governor of Ohio from January 2007 to January 2011. He lost his bid for a second term in November 2010 to current governor and GOP presidential candidate John Kasich (R). Strickland announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in February 2015. The seat is currently held by first-term Senator and former U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, who is running for re-election.
Since Strickland’s entrance into the race, Portman has made the former governor’s economic record a key issue, addressing it on social media and in campaign ads. We decided to take a look at two of the larger economic claims made by Portman’s campaign. Both are prominently featured in a television ad from April 2015 titled "Ohio Lost Jobs." The ad opens by stating, “When Ted Strickland was governor, Ohio’s unemployment rate soared to over ten percent.” It then points out a number of employers that left the state between 2007 and 2011, such as DHS in Wilmington and National Cash Register in Dayton. The ad concludes by saying “when Ted Strickland was governor, Ohio was almost dead last in job creation. We lost over 350,000 jobs. We can’t go back.”[1] Portman’s campaign has reposted the ad on Facebook and Twitter several times since April.
Are Portman’s unemployment and job loss numbers in Ohio accurate, and, if so, is Strickland to blame?
See also our fact check of Ted Strickland's claim that Ohio lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs because of NAFTA.
Ohio’s economy: 2007 to 2011
Portman’s ad cites articles from the Columbus Dispatch and PolitiFact as its sources. We looked into both of them. The Dispatch article, from May 23, 2009, stated, “Ohio got fresh evidence yesterday that the economy is replaying the worst days of that decade, as the state unemployment rate hit double digits for the first time in 25 years. The seasonally adjusted rate was 10.2 percent in April [2009].”[2] The PolitiFact article dates to January 24, 2013. It fact checked a statement made by Strickland in 2013 in which he claimed that Ohio's economic recovery began in February 2010. They rated the claim "Mostly True." By way of adding context, the article stated that in late 2010, "350,000 fewer Ohioans had jobs than when Strickland took office.”[3]
We decided to take a look at the economic data ourselves. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Ohio’s unemployment rate did indeed surpass 10 percent during Strickland’s tenure. As seen in the charts below, it hovered above 10 percent from April 2009 to June 2010, peaking in December 2009 and January 2010 at 11 percent. This was roughly one percent higher than the national unemployment rate at that same time. Also according to BLS data, Ohio had a total of 5,435,800 nonfarm jobs in January 2007 and 5,068,000 when Strickland left office in January 2011. That’s a difference of 367,800 jobs, an almost 7 percent decrease in four years.[4] The charts below show Ohio's unemployment rate and total nonfarm jobs from 2003 to 2015. Strickland's tenure—from 2007 to 2011—is highlighted in gray.
Is Strickland to blame?
Portman’s numbers not only check out, but they are actually slight understatements. But what about the larger point that the ad seeks to make about Strickland? Should Strickland—as the ad suggests—be held directly responsible for Ohio’s 11 percent unemployment rate in 2009/10 and for the 367,800 jobs that the state lost between 2007 and 2011?
Strickland's economic policies included investments in renewable energy and biomedical industries as well as infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and ports along Ohio's northern coastline on Lake Erie. He also continued the tax cuts began by his predecessor, Bob Taft (R), though he halted a tax income decrease scheduled for 2009, which some viewed as a de facto increase.[5][6] The economists whom we contacted, however, cautioned against reading too much into any perceived connections between these specific policies and Ohio's economic performance under Strickland.
One problem is that a governor’s economic policies can have significant influence over a state’s economy in the long term, but those same policies are generally believed to have a limited impact in the short term. This is an important point given that Strickland was only in office for four years and signs of Ohio’s economic woes began to appear as early as his second year in office (see charts above). Don Boyd, director of fiscal studies at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, summed up this problem as follows: “It is very hard for a governor to influence an economy in the short term. Cyclical swings in employment and unemployment often are driven by huge forces that no governor can control, particularly in the short term ... Governors certainly may have longer term effects on the economy. Perhaps investment in infrastructure and education will make the economy stronger over the long haul. Perhaps keeping taxes low (maybe instead of spending on education or infrastructure) would be positive. It is not easy to measure the impact of either, and there are big debates over the extent to which investment or tax reduction might help the economy (and of course how well you do either matters).”[7]
Charles Ballard, a professor of economics at Michigan State University, made a similar point, saying, "If Portman, or you, or I, or anyone else, had been governor of Ohio during that time, the jobs picture would have been basically the same. Governors can influence a lot of things, many of which are important in the long run, but they have close to zero influence on short term macroeconomic fluctuations."[8]
A second problem is that a global recession kicked in near the end of Strickland’s first year in office. All of the states surrounding Ohio saw both unemployment rates and job losses increase between 2007 and 2011—some even more than Ohio.
The global recession, according to the economists we spoke to, was likely the main culprit for these states’ and Ohio’s economic problems. Charles Ballard explained to us via email, "Politics is full of attempts to confuse correlation with causation. ... Zero blame should be placed on the state executive, and 100% should be placed on the national recession, plus or minus a few percentage points."[8] Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Robert Lynch, a professor of economics at Washington College in Maryland, agreed. Deller told us via email, “How much of the Ohio downturn during the Great Recession can be laid at the feet of the governor? Given the nature of the Great Recession not really very much.”[9] Lynch said, “State economic policies definitely can affect outcomes but a national recession will swamp a state's best efforts to promote growth and create jobs. The bottom line is that the national recession was the main cause of Ohio's woes.[10] Don Boyd added that Ohio's situation may have been worse because of its strengths in the manufacturing industry. At the time the recession hit, the state had the third most manufacturing jobs in the country, just behind California and Texas.[5] "Most recessions hit manufacturing harder than other industries, so a state that is heavily reliant on manufacturing may be hit harder than a state that has a broader-based economy or has a greater share of service employment," said Boyd.[7]
Conclusion
In a frequently promoted television ad from April 2015, Rob Portman’s campaign states that under former governor Ted Strickland’s watch, Ohio’s unemployment rate surpassed 10 percent and the state lost more than 350,000 jobs. We actually found those numbers to be slight understatements. Ohio’s unemployment rate peaked at 11 percent during Strickland’s tenure as governor from 2007 to 2011, and the state lost 367,800 jobs in total. But on the question of whether Strickland should be held directly responsible for Ohio’s economic woes, we found the direct connection to be tenuous. The economists we talked to suggested that governors rarely have much influence over their state’s economies in the short term. Moreover, they noted that the global recession likely bears the brunt of the responsibility for Ohio’s unemployment rate and job losses between 2007 and 2011.
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
- ↑ RobPortman.com, "Guarding Ohio Jobs vs. Ohio Lost Jobs," accessed December 31, 2015
- ↑ Columbus Dispatch, "Ohio's jobless rate jumps to 10.2%," May 23, 2009
- ↑ PolitiFact, "Ted Strickland says Ohio's economic turnaround began in early 2010 while he was still governor," January 24, 2013
- ↑ Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Ohio," accessed December 31, 2015
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Barone, M. et al. (2009) The Almanac of American Politics, 2010 Washington, D.C.: National Journal Group
- ↑ Politifact, "GOP challenger John Kasich says Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s tax freeze amounted to a tax hike," October 13, 2010
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Email exchange with Don Boyd on December 30, 2015
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Email exchange with Charles Ballard on January 3, 2016
- ↑ Email exchange with Steven Deller on December 30, 2015
- ↑ Email exchange with Robert Lynch on December 30, 2015
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