Betty Sutton's Slow Recovery
Ohio’s top CPAs responding to the seventh annual Ohio Business Poll have pushed back their earlier prediction by one year for when a sustainable U.S. economic recovery will begin.
Ohio unemployment rates have not yet peaked
About a third (36%) of respondents to the poll, conducted by The Ohio Society of CPAs (OSCPA), predict a sustainable recovery to start in the second half of 2010, while 26% put the turnaround in the first half of 2011. In the 2008 poll, the overwhelming majority of poll participants forecast a sustainable recovery coming in the last half of 2009 or the first half of 2010 (62%).
In addition, 65% of CPAs responding this year felt Ohio unemployment rates have not yet peaked. Nearly half (48%) believe it could take up to four years for the state to return to pre-recession unemployment levels of 5.8% recorded in December 2007.
Respondents were ambivalent concerning the effectiveness of the national stimulus packages at creating and retaining jobs in Ohio, with 26% saying the stimulus packages were neither effective nor ineffective and 23% responding that they were somewhat effective.
