Providing Labor Market Context for Debt-Related Driver’s License Suspensions in Ohio

It stands out immediately that even in this scenario where only half of the DRS holders left the workforce, losses would be substantial statewide. The median ZCTA would stand to lose over 9 percent of its labor force, while fully one quarter would lose over 15 percent. Seventeen ZCTAs would lose more than 65 percent of their labor force in this scenario, and these tend to be in core urban areas with larger work forces. In three ZCTAs (44702: Canton, 44503 and 44507: Youngstown) half of the DRS population exceeds the labor force so that in this scenario, these locations would lose their entire labor force. While there are certainly pockets that would lose less than 7 percent, the elevated rates in urban areas, and rates commonly ranging from 7 percent to 40 percent in the south, southeast, and north central portions of the state are notable.

Driver’s License Requirements in Job Ads

Next, we investigate how often a valid driver’s license is included in online job postings to see how DRS could potentially impact hiring activity in Ohio. The share of job ads requesting a driver’s license provides insights into how likely a driver’s license is a barrier to employment for those without a valid one. To be clear, a driver’s license is a necessary and important requirement for employment in occupations that require the transportation of goods and services that are inherent to the job. However, we know employer requirements for hiring do not always align with what is required to perform the occupation and can change overtime, especially when it comes to education.³ Similar to a college degree, employers with limited information about candidates could use a driver’s license as a signal of employability. A lack of a driver’s license becomes a barrier to hiring/employment when it artificially screens out candidates that would qualify otherwise.

Two observations stand out when comparing the share of job ads requesting a driver’s license in Ohio and the nation since 2015 (Figure 2). First, driver’s license requirements are more common in Ohio than the national average. The share of ads requesting a driver's license is roughly 25 percent higher in Ohio than the national average. In 2022, 14 percent of Ohio’s job ads requested a driver's license compared to the national average of 10.6 percent of job ads. Second, driver’s license requirements have become more common since 2015 with growth in Ohio larger than the national average. Ohio’s share grew 5.9 percentage points (74.0 percent) compared to the national average growth of 4.1 percentage points (63.4 percent). Together these observations likely reflect Ohio’s industrial composition rather than Ohio’s employers requesting a driver’s license when it is not needed. However, they also indicate that DRS can limit the supply of workers available for hire and has increasingly done so since 2015.

A closer look at the share of job ads requesting a driver’s license reveals significant variation across Ohio’s industrial sectors (Figure 3). On the higher end of the spectrum, waste management and remediation services, construction, real estate, rental and leasing, public administration, and transportation, warehousing, and utilities all have more than 20 percent of job ads requesting a driver’s license. While some of these are expected to have a high concentration based on the nature of the work, public administration stands out as a large sector, employing over 760,000 workers, with a high incidence of asking for a driver’s license (29.7 percent of job ads). Furthermore, while not shown, the share of public administration job ads requesting a driver's license increased over 100 percent from 2015 to 2022⁴.

On the low end, manufacturing, accommodation and food services, professional, scientific, and technical services, finance and insurance, and educational services all have less than 10 percent of job ads requesting a driver's license. Two other large sources of employment—retail trade as well as health care and social assistance—each have about 12 percent of job ads requesting a driver's license. This data indicates that some industrial sectors are more susceptible to DRS than others, with the public sector as one area that is especially at risk of DRS and has seen that risk increase markedly since 2015.

How these patterns play out geographically depends on each zip code’s mix of sector employment, and the degree to which each sector requires a driver’s license as a condition of employment. To create Figure 4, below, each zip code’s employment in each sector was multiplied by the proportion of jobs requiring a driver’s license. The result is the number of jobs in each sector requiring a driver’s license, which was then summed to a total. The percent of all jobs requiring a driver’s license is mapped. These figures assume that the driver’s license requirements of job ads in each sector apply to all of the current jobs in that sector.

The spatial pattern is quite telling. First, in and around Ohio’s metropolitan areas, the percent of jobs requiring a license steadily increases as one moves from the core to the periphery. Non-metropolitan Ohio has some of the highest rates of jobs requiring a driver’s license, indicated by the darkest orange in Figure 4. Although these areas had more moderate labor force loss, they are also quite probably more auto dependent. Transit is unlikely to serve as a viable substitute for a driver’s license in these areas, leading either to accelerated labor force loss or increased driving with a suspended license, risking additional suspensions, fines, fees, and incarceration.

There is also significant variation in the share of job ads with a driver’s license across occupations. In 2022, 247 out of 815 occupations had over 20 percent of job postings requesting a driver’s license whereas 100 occupations did not have any job postings requesting a driver’s license. As mentioned above, a driver’s license is a necessary and important requirement for employment in some occupations but may not be for others. For example, 72 percent of job ads for a delivery driver ask for a driver’s license compared to just 3 percent of job ads for accountants and auditors. But there are also examples of occupations that you might not expect to ask for driver’s license but do so at a relatively high rate; for instance, 22 percent of job ads for janitors and cleaners and 19 percent of job ads for food service managers are looking for a driver’s license.

Across all of Ohio’s occupations, lower- and middle-wage occupations tend to have the highest rates of job ads requesting a driver’s license (Table 4). In fact, only 10.9 percent of jobs ads for the highest wage occupations (more than $79,400) request a driver’s license compared to 25.9 percent of job ads for occupations in the middle of the wage distribution ($48,000 to $60,000). This relationship between wages and job ads requesting a driver’s license indicates that DRS can be more problematic for hiring into middle- and lower-wage occupations and suggests that a driver’s license is important for one’s economic mobility in the lower half of the wage distribution. Those workers would have a more difficult time meeting the financial burden associated with a DRS.

Table 4: Average Annual Median Wage Occupation Quintiles and Share of Job Ads Requesting a Driver’s License, 2022

Source: Lightcast, Bureau of Labor Statistics. * Employment weighted average.

Conclusion

Debt-related driver’s license suspensions are often viewed from a broader “fines and fees” perspective, calling attention to the financial burden they place on individuals, frequently initiating a cycle of debt that is difficult to escape. Our goal was not to focus on these individual consequences, but rather to provide labor market context for Ohio suspending drivers’ licenses for owing a debt—not for reasons related to driving.

Based on our analysis, over 830,000 Ohioans could be at risk of leaving the labor force if only half of drivers with a DRS abided by its terms. That equates to 14.4 percent of the labor force. Metropolitan labor markets would be hit the hardest by the labor force exodus, along with nonmetropolitan areas in southern Ohio. Compared to the nation, Ohio’s new jobs more often require a driver’s license, and the requirement is increasing. It is becoming more common, across almost all sectors, for a driver’s license to be required as a condition of employment. This is particularly so in suburban, exurban, and rural economies, reflecting the mobility challenges present in areas that are not well served by public transit. Furthermore, employer driver’s license requirements tend to be highest in middle- and lower-wage occupations, indicating the importance of a driver’s license to this segment of the workforce while highlighting how a lack of driver’s license can be a barrier to economic mobility for those most at risk of receiving a DRS.

Our analysis suggests that these suspensions, especially when combined with increasing driver’s license requirements, make finding and maintaining employment more difficult for a sizable portion of Ohioans, but that instability also affects the broader economy. Fewer people in the labor force means fewer people to hire and fewer people to produce and consume goods and services.