Progress Illinois

Yesterday, we highlighted a rare bit of good news for Illinois schools: Revenue from large-scale wind projects are providing relief to some downstate school districts who've been struggling to cope with unreliable state funding. For instance, by next year, the Colfax school district will net an additional $1.7 million in new revenue from Horizon Wind Energy's Twin Groves Wind Farm. For a rural district operating on an $8 million annual budget, that is money that will go a long way.

The economic power of the wind industry -- which is anticipated to invest $1.9 billion in Illinois over the next 25 years -- looks equally promising for the state as a whole, according to some new research out of Illinois State University.  Economist David Loomis of the school's Center for Renewable Energy examined the economic impact of Illinois' 17 major wind projects (and the 1,118.76 MW of energy they've generated).  He found that the farms have succeeded in generating sizable and sustainable revenues, including upwards of $11.4 million in new property taxes each year.

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Over the past few months, we've been chronicling the holes in Illinois' safety net created by the short-sighted welfare reforms instituted in the mid-Nineties. Regular readers know that the work requirements attached to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program were pitched at the time as a way to empower people to reenter the workforce. But as the booming job market went bust, many of the Prairie State's poorest families failed to find steady work and have since been tipped toward deep poverty with no hope for aid.

Not surprisingly, the same scenario is playing out in states across the country.

In its latest round of research on the effectiveness of public assistance programs, the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that 1.3 million fewer children would be living in extreme poverty had the safety net been as sturdy in 2005 as it was in 1995. 

The report explains:

The erosion of the safety net’s antipoverty effectiveness was concentrated at the very bottom of the income scale ... for children whose non-safety-net income was below 50 percent of the poverty line, the share lifted above half of the poverty line dropped from 88 percent to 76 percent, a decline of 12 percentage points.

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If you thought the $8 billion dollar investment needed to realize the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative was shocking, you probably aren't that familiar with the scope of our nation’s transit infrastructure needs. Thankfully, a new report by the Center for Transit Oriented Development -- titled “Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race” -- paints a clearer picture of what’s needed to create a system for the 21st century.

Planning has begun on more than $248 billion worth of new fixed-guideway projects (meaning bus and rail transit) in communities across the United States. Midwestern lawmakers have already proposed over $44 billion worth of projects amd Illinois accounts for just shy of $6 billion, which doesn’t include the modernization of the CTA. But don’t buy the Neo-Hooverite line that this is too much money to spend in the midst of a recession. Expansionary policies are the antidote to economic downturns and the modernization and development of new transit systems is essential to protect our long-term economic and environmental well-being.

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It's no secret that America's recession is deepening. Paul Krugman painted a grim picture in his must-read op-ed on Friday. He noted retail sales and industrial production are tanking and the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index is dropping quicker than at any time in two decades. "All signs," he wrote, "point to an economic slump that will be nasty, brutish — and long." The unemployment stats he highlighted are equally startling:

How nasty? The unemployment rate is already above 6 percent (and broader measures of underemployment are in double digits). It’s now virtually certain that the unemployment rate will go above 7 percent, and quite possibly above 8 percent, making this the worst recession in a quarter-century.

According to the Economic Policy Institute's Nooshin Mahalia, the situation is even worse than these figures indicate.

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It's no secret that home foreclosures are soaring. In a front-page article today, the Tribune noted that 30 percent of all U.S. mortgage holders will owe more on their homes than they are worth in just one year. Unfortunately, little is being done to help those struggling to stay under their roof.

According to a recent study (PDF) released by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group -- the task force consisting of 11 attorneys general -- nearly eight out of 10 "seriously delinquent homeowners are not on track for any loss mitigation outcome," a number that rose between January and May of this year. In fact, loan modification efforts for at-risk homeowners dropped by 28 percent during that stretch, the lowest number enacted since 2007. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a leader of the commission, isn't too happy with the data.

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What communities are faring well in the 21st century economy? Swing State Project took a look at data from the Census Bureau's 2007 American Community Survey to find out which congressional districts have gained or lost the most in terms of income and poverty since 2000. Two Illinois districts are featured prominently in the data.

On the one end, only eight districts nationwide experienced more per capita income growth than Illinois' 7th District (above left), which covers downtown Chicago, parts of the South and West sides, and the near-western suburbs. Since 2000, income rose $10,368, from $25,329 to $35,697. 

A bit further south, the news isn't nearly as rosy. In Illinois' 2nd District (above right), which stretches from southeast Chicago through the south suburbs, income growth was virtually stagnant, jumping a mere $1,724 in seven years. In fact, only four congressional districts -- all of them in auto-dependent Michigan (two covering Detroit, one covering Flint, and one covering the city's northern suburbs) -- experienced less income growth nationwide.

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There's a strain of thought among some conservative education reformers that goes like this: because a complex set of factors (including social and economic disadvantage, teacher quality, and parental involvement) cause disparities in achievement between students in poor and wealthy districts, education funding reform isn't the cure-all to our the nation's achievement gap. Thus, we shouldn't spend much of our political capital addressing funding inequities. Instead, more vouchers!

Of course, it's absolutely true that equal funding doesn't erase the acheivement gap on its own. But that doesn't mean money doesn't matter. A new study released (PDF) by the Illinois-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability divides schools into three distinct categories based on their local property wealth:

- "Flat Grant" districts, which have the greatest amount of available local property wealth.
- "Alternative Formula" districts, which have the second greatest amount of available property wealth.
- "Foundation Formula" districts, which have available local property wealth that ranges from very low to just above average.

And what does the research show? Academic performance -- measured by data from the Illinois State Achievement Test -- is "strongly correlated" with mild increases (between $1,000-$2,200) in spending on instruction. The academic growth is evident in both school districts with low poverty (3-8 percent low income rates) and significant poverty (27-32 percent low income rates).

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With unemployment rising and and wages stagnating, the American economy is in need of a serious jolt. To stimulate growth, environmental and labor activists have convincingly called for a major investment in a "green economy," which would not only expand job opportunities but would fight global warming too, arguably the biggest long-term threat our nation faces. What would this economy look like and how would Illinois be affected? Earlier this week, the Center For American Progress (CAP) gave us some idea when it unveiled its Green Economic Recovery Program.

Billed as a two-year investment, the report calls for the retrofitting of buildings, an expansion of mass transit and freight rail, the construction of smart energy grids, and the expanded production of wind power, solar power, and advanced biofuels. CAP argues that if the federal government spends $100 billion over the next two years, we could create 2 million jobs nationwide. Here in Illinois (PDF), the authors estimate that such an infusion could generate 83,710 jobs, lowering the unemployment rate over a full percentage point.

Barack Obama has vowed to invest $150 billion in a clean energy economy.  But his proposal spreads that appropriation over a more cautious 10-year period. John McCain, who speaks constantly about the need for energy independence, has made no similar pledge, instead vowing to invest heavily in nuclear power, clean coal, offshore drilling, and alternative energy tax credits.

(H/T Progressive States Network) 

The first rule you learn in any statistics class is that correlation does not equal causation. Apparently, the folks at the Employment Policies Institute missed that lecture. Who is this organization, you might ask? According to Source Watch, it's "one of several front groups created by Berman & Co., a Washington, DC public affairs firm owned by Rick Berman, who lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries." With its funders reliant on low-wage labor, it's no surprise that the Institute's researchers would drum up an ad campaign blaming high teen unemployment rates on the minimum wage hike pushed through by Congress in 2007.  Here's an excerpt from the ad, which is airing in Alabama, Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Tennessee

Mom 1: We had the same problem. Matt walked around at the mall and at restaurants—he even tried getting a job doing yard work for the city. There was nothing available for kids.

Mom 2: The worst part is that they are playing video games instead of getting the experience we had when we were teens—earning a paycheck, having responsibility, and working with others.

Male Voiceover: In 2007, the United States Congress passed a measure that raised the minimum wage by 41 percent. Since then, the teen unemployment rate has shot up 33% percent. This was the worst summer since World War II for teens looking to find a job. When minimum wages for unskilled work increase dramatically in a weak economy the first people to lose are the ones we were intending to help.

What this campaign overlooks is that declining teen employment is standard for recessions.

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Declining poverty rates and nationwide efforts to decentralize poverty caused the urban poor population to fall by 27 percent during the 1990s. Unfortunately, the economic downturn of the Bush years has reversed those trends.

According to a comprehensive new study by the Brookings Institution's Alan Berube and Elizabeth Kneebone, the number of tax filers nationwide living in areas with high rates of working poverty jumped by 40 percent between tax years 1999 and 2005. During the same period, 34 large metropolitan areas experienced increased rates of concentrated working poverty (calculated by the share of Earned Income Tax Credit filers in communities with a high percentage of working poor). By contrast, 24 areas showed declines.

Cities in the Midwest and Northeast are experiencing the highest increases:

Detroit and its suburbs in 2005 had the highest concentrated working poverty rate in the Midwest: 27.5 percent, followed by St. Louis (21.6 percent), Cleveland (21.5 percent) and Chicago—plus its Illinois and Northwest Indiana suburbs—at 17.9 percent. The highest rate in the Northeast was the Philadelphia metropolitan area, at 25.5 percent.

As the landscape in Chicago demonstrates, this problem isn't limited to the inner city.

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