Ohio’s fiscal health is improving, and it may be contagious.
The Buckeye State’s debt, which suffered the steepest drop in the nation four years ago, has bounced back in a big way.
Ohio’s tax revenues have exceeded expectations. The state closed an $8 billion deficit without raising tax rates and its rainy-day fund was replenished from virtually nothing in January 2011 to $482 million today, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
The state’s economy also reflects a better employment picture. After a decade of losing jobs, the state’s jobless rate is inching down. Buoyed by energy production, the state added 176,000 jobs since 2009, the fifth-largest gain in the nation over that time.
But Ohio isn’t the only state with an improved fiscal outlook.
Nationwide, defaults in the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal bond market, which were always miniscule, are set to fall below 100 this year, the lowest since 2009.
As of mid October, 63 issuers defaulted, compared to last year’s total of 81, a far cry from the apocalyptic predictions of some market commentators at the end of 2010.
Happy returns
It’s little wonder that professional investors are loading up on munis. The total return on Ohio’s tax-free debt was 8.6% this year, highest among states, even as it issued $9.3 billion of new bonds, an increase of 75% over the same period last year. Four years ago, in the throes of the recession, the state’s bonds declined 9.6%.
So far this year, munis nationwide returned 6.8%, the fourth consecutive year of increases and the longest streak since 2007.
Sunshine in Florida
The state of Florida’s fiscal outlook is also looking up. The number of failures involving real-estate borrowings have fallen by half since the foreclosure crisis peaked in 2010.
Florida’s housing market, once among the worst in the nation, is improving. Demand is up, prices are strengthening and foreclosures, which reached a record 20.6% in March 2010, were down to 17.5% as of June 30.
The state is one of nine assigned S&P’s highest general-obligation credit rating, “AAA.” Ohio is one notch below at “AA+.”
Doomsayers despairing
Investors choose high-quality munis for a steady stream of tax-free income, particularly in today’s climate, where taxable returns on Treasury bonds and CDs are negligible. In the equity markets, the S&P 500 returned just 1.1% per year for the five-year period ending in July, compared to the index returns for munis of 5.82% during the same period.
Somewhere, the pundits who in recent years offered their extraordinary predictions of massive defaults are cringing. The crash they seemed to crave never happened. Cities and states have demonstrated they have the means and will to address their fiscal problems. Fortunately, most investors were not swayed by the hyperbole and have reaped the benefits.