Andrew J. Kidd, Ph.D., an economist with The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center, commented on newly released employment data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, saying, “Ohio’s job market continues to present conflicting signals, which reflects the uncertainty in Ohio’s economy. Despite an increase of 2,500 private sector jobs in July, Ohio’s private sector employment is still down 13,900 jobs since January 2019.”

Greg R. Lawson, research fellow at The Buckeye Institute, testified Monday before the Florida Financial Impact Estimating Conference on the financial estimates and impacts of Medicaid expansion. In 2020, Florida voters will vote on a constitutional amendment that will expand Medicaid to cover healthy, able-bodied adults with no children.

In the Washington Examiner, Buckeye’s Greg Lawson looks at needed changes to how the IRS seizes and freezes business accounts, writing, “As Trump looks for new ways to help small businesses and ease the burdens that Big Government continues to lay upon their calloused shoulders, he would do well to improve upon the bipartisan, unanimous reforms of the Taxpayer First Act, and promulgate new rules for the IRS to follow when the IRS errs. Everyone makes mistakes, even federal agencies. Everyone should own up to them, especially the IRS.”

Ohio’s recently-passed budget included a long overdue victory for Ohio’s families and school choice advocates that The Buckeye Institute has championed for years. Included in the 2,600-page budget bill was a significant expansion of Ohio’s EdChoice program, which provides education scholarships for students from failing public schools and scholarships to low-income families.

The Buckeye Institute appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts, for oral arguments in Reisman v. AFUM, which calls for an immediate end to the laws that force public-sector employees to accept union representation. In commenting on Professor Reisman’s case, Buckeye’s Robert Alt said, “In its Janus decision, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote that designating a union ‘as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual employees,’ indicating the court’s serious concerns about the constitutionality of forced exclusive representation.”

Andrew J. Kidd, Ph.D., an economist with The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center, commented on newly released employment data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, saying, “Job creation is continuing its summer vacation in Ohio with the June jobs report, which saw Ohio add only 400 new private sector jobs… This worrying jobs report, coupled with an unsustainable $143 billion budget that did not rein in government spending, should be concerning to policymakers.”

Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, issued a statement on the passage of Ohio House Bill 166, saying, “The General Assembly passed a budget that contains a number of good policies that will help grow Ohio’s economy…However, policymakers passed up the opportunity to adopt greater tax reform that would have allowed Ohioans to keep more of their hard-earned money and would have spurred greater economic growth and refused to rein in government spending.

After filing the first post-Janus First Amendment labor law challenge in the United States Supreme Court, The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in support of a related challenge, Miller v. Inslee, that calls on the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize that laws forcing recipients of government benefits to accept union representation are unconstitutional. As it did in its brief in Bierman v. Dayton, Buckeye argues that the lower courts have improperly exempted such “exclusive representation” schemes from scrutiny under the First Amendment.

In a new whitepaper for The Federalist Society, Robert Alt, a nationally-recognized leader in criminal justice reform, and president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, outlines a sampling of the significant strides states across the country took in reforming their criminal justice laws throughout 2018.

In the Akron Beacon Journal, Buckeye’s Greg Lawson responds to a July 3 editorial “Cut state regulations? Not in this way,” writing, “Ohio desperately needs regulatory reform that eliminates unnecessary regulations that strangle private industry and enterprise as part of the state’s broader reform efforts to boost economic growth. If Ohio does not focus its regulations and rules on protecting the public from genuine harm, the state will continue to see slower growth and lower prosperity compared to many other states.”