Ohioans hope for a rosy future, as politicians hand us promise after promise to distract from reality. We know there is potential, but numbers don’t lie, and the Ohio Department of Development’s Office of Research took a look at population projections from 2020 to 2050 to show us what the trends really suggest.

Population change: Ohio’s population is projected to decline by approximately 675,000 (5.7%) by 2050 if current rates of fertility, mortality, and migration remain unchanged. Ohio is currently the seventh most populous state. Georgia and North Carolina will likely surpass Ohio in total population by 2030 or shortly thereafter. Ohio is expected to remain the ninth most populous state for any years beyond the scope of these projections.

2020 to 2050 County Population Change Fertility: Ohio’s total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen during the past decade, as it has in the United States. Ohio’s 2020 rate equates to approximately 1.7 total births, on average, per Ohio resident female.

Ohio’s TFR is slightly higher than the national rate, which has also declined by about 15% from a decade earlier. In Ohio and in the United States, women are delaying childbirth and having fewer children overall.

Mortality: Current data trends in mortality are highly unstable. From 2019 to 2020, Ohio’s age-adjusted mortality rate increased by approximately 15% and was also 15% higher than the national rate. In 2020, Ohio ranked 38th of all states in life expectancy.

Population stability and growth are predicted in only a few counties: Clermont, Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Geauga, Greene, Hamilton, Licking, Lorain, Miami, Pickaway, Union, Warren and Wood.

Every other county shows a predicted loss, with many of the worst losses coming along the Ohio River.

Morgan County is expected to have experienced the steepest decline in population by 2050, at -31.73%. Delaware County, on the other hand, is expected to have seen an increase of 53.60%.

Should trends hold, our region could see a significant reduction in population over the next 25 years or so.

Columbiana County is projected a -24.82% reduction, down to a population of 76,556. Mahoning County’s respective figures are -22.49% and 177,305.

So, what do we do about it? The largest part of the reason for population loss is “natural change,” the numeric difference between resident births and resident deaths.

The other indicator is migration. The state as a whole is expected to see net migration on the positive side from 2020 through 2050, but in numbers that are small enough not to make much difference for the population total.

It is too simple to say the solution is to develop an economy and communities in which our young people want to stay and raise families — and which attract newcomers. Policymakers aren’t searching for the what, but the how.

Step one is to stop driving people away to search for better jobs, better education, better healthcare and a generally better quality of life somewhere else. After that, steps two and beyond might just fall into place on their own.

In fact, before we get to step one, perhaps a copy of the Office of Research’s map “Projected 2050 Ohio County Populations, Percent Change 2020 – 2050” should be handed to every elected official in the state so they can get a visual of the consequences for failing to prioritize Ohioans over their own agendas.