How bad is it? 17.5% in Ohio underemployed

Warren County woman has 2 part-time jobs that pay a fifth of what she made at her old job.

Jodi Black works 20 hours a week for Warren County Community Services and works on the side for the U.S. census. Because of problems finding full-time employment, Black lost her home and now lives with her elderly parents. Staff photos by Jim Noelker

JIM NOELKER/Staff Jodi Black works 20 hours a week for Warren County Community Services and works on the side for the U.S. census. Because of problems finding full-time employment, Black lost her home and now lives with her elderly parents. Staff photos by Jim Noelker

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$Notes made by Jodi Beck reflect the situation she is in – going five years without insurance, needing to file for bankruptcy (though she can't afford it), and making only a fraction of what she used to.$

JIM NOELKER/Staff Notes made by Jodi Beck reflect the situation she is in – going five years without insurance, needing to file for bankruptcy (though she can't afford it), and making only a fraction of what she used to.

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By William Hershey, Columbus Bureau Updated 1:45 AM Sunday, June 13, 2010

LEBANON — Jodi Black has a job. In fact, Black has two jobs.

They’re part-time with a combined salary of about $10,000 — a fifth of what the Warren County woman made in the full-time job she lost in 2004.

“I always thought if you worked hard and tried hard you would have a job,” said Black, 49. “It’s just not that way.”

Black is among the growing category of workers who, in the jargon of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, are “underemployed.” Economists say underemployment is one of the best measures of just how bad things have gotten in the Great Recession, even in pockets of relative prosperity such as growing Warren County.

“It gives us a more comprehensive measure of how many (people) are directly affected by the downturn,” said Heidi Shierholz, who tracks unemployment for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Ohio’s unemployment rate has hovered between 10 and 11 percent since April 2009; April’s rate was 10.9 percent.

The most recent state underemployment rate, however, was 17.5 percent. Included in that grim statistic are the unemployed, people who were looking for work but then stopped, and those, like Black, who are working part-time involuntarily.

Some believe even that figure is optimistic because it doesn’t capture workers overqualified for their full-time jobs — the “mechanical engineer working at 7-11,” Shierholz said.

Since Black lost her full-time job as an extension educator at Ohio State University, she and her college student son have moved in with her aging parents. She is thankful for the 20 hours a week she works as an Ohio Benefits Bank coordinator for the Warren County Community Services, but wishes she could help her parents more financially.

“I need to file (for) bankruptcy,” she said, “but I don’t have enough money.”

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDaily News.com.

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