· October 3, 2012

Kasich vastly understating Ohio’s auto recovery

This morning, Governor Kasich appeared on Marketplace radio to talk about the Presidential race and tonight’s debate. When asked whether the success of the President’s auto recovery efforts could hurt his challenger in Ohio, Kasich threw out some very curious — very wrong — numbers about the success of the recovery in the state. He actually claimed that the industry has lost 500 jobs in Ohio. Listen: Kasich on auto jobs The Governor is wrong. We obtained the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics just last week. It shows that direct jobs in Ohio’s auto industry have grown by 17,315 since its low in June, 2009 at the time of the rescue.

We know Kasich likes to count starting when he took office, which is an odd starting point, but even using that yardstick, the industry has created 6,638 jobs in that shorter timeframe. Instead of talking down the success of an industry that is responsible for 848,000 jobs in Ohio, we recommend Governor Kasich take another look at the data.