New Study: Youth Employment Rates Dropping For Black Men, Increasing For Hispanic Women

Teresa Córdova, director of the Great Cities Institute at UIC, is quoted in a CBS 2 Chicago article about a new GCI report, co-authored with Matt Wilson, that examines youth unemployment in Illinois. The report, which was commissioned by the Alternative Schools Network, unveils a discrepancy between youth employment rates of Black men and Hispanic women.

According to the research from the Great Cities Institute, the number of young black men ages 20 to 24 out of school and out of work dropped from a 2014 high of 16,156 to a 2016 low of 10,604.

Córdova says she’s not entirely sure why the trend differs for young Hispanic women. Those without jobs jumped from 5,216 to 7,566.

Córdova states that the overall message is, “There is a need for small business incubators that tap into talents and creativity of young people and turn those into marketable goods and services.”

Full Story from CBS Chicago »

WiFi? Street repairs? Parks? Cities let residents choose how to spend their tax dollars

Freehold Borough Councilmen Ron Griffiths and Kevin Kane at the site of the proposed pedestrian bridge over Lake Topanemus, Freehold, NJ. Citizens voted to fund the building of the bridge through the process of participatory budgeting.   Source: Beverly Schaefer.

Thea Crum, director of the Neighborhoods Initiative at the Great Cities Institute at UIC, is quoted in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about the process of participatory budgeting. Crum discusses one of the benefits of formal participatory budgeting by local governments. Philadelphia recently began a Participatory Budgeting campaign to allocate funds for sidewalk repair and pedestrian infrastructure, among other initiatives, and drew inspiration from Chicago’s active Participatory Budgeting Project.

Chicago was the first to formalize participatory budgeting in the United States in 2009, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Participatory Budgeting Project, which gives outreach materials and technical assistance to communities.

“Often, when people think about beginning new programs, they think about looking for new resources,” said Thea Crum, director of the Neighborhoods Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute, a partner of Participatory Budgeting Chicago. “One of the great things about PB is it really is just shifting how decisions are made about the same pot of money.”

Full Story from the Philadelphia Inquirer »

The Enduring Impact of Industrial Restructuring on Youth Employment

Our report, Industrial Restructuring and the Continuing Impact on Youth Employment in Illinois was released Monday at a press conference at Innovation High School of Arts Integration.  Below are our comments from the press conference:

Amidst the remnants of an “old economy” are the many marginalized workers who continue to feel the impacts of industrial restructuring and whose avenues into the “new economy” are either blocked or limited.

This report exposes conditions of chronic and concentrated joblessness remain entrenched, particularly for African Americans and that there are parts of Illinois that are worse than in Chicago and Cook County.

This report finds that:

In every age group and every geography, African Americans had the highest rates of joblessness and out of school and out work young people.

There are regions within Illinois where, since 1980, there is an increase in poverty and full time low wage employment and for young people throughout Illinois, the impacts of chronic joblessness remain a deep-rooted issue.

Middle class occupations are leaving medium-sized cities and rural areas as income inequalities grow.

Economies of mid-sized cities and rural areas are not incorporating young people into the workforce

This report also examined four counties in Illinois as case studies including Peoria, Tazewell, Kankakee, and Sangamon. In each of these counties, for the total population, poverty levels increased.  In Peoria individuals below the poverty level went from 9.9% in 1980 to 17.6%; In Tazewell, it went from 5.5% to 8.0%; Kankakee showed an increase in poverty from 12.9% to 15.4%; and in Sangamon from 9% to 15%

In the ratios of household income to poverty, the data for these same counties, shows a shrinking middle class and an increasing gap between the lowest and highest incomes.

In our case study counties, there is an increase in the proportion of full time employees in low wage industries

For young people, 20-24, for the 2012-2016 five-year estimates, there are parts of Illinois that showed higher rates of joblessness than did Chicago or Cook County.  Joblessness and Out of School and Out of Work rates were comparatively worse in areas of south, west, and Central Illinois compared to Cook County.

For Blacks, the out of school and out of work rates for 20 to 24-year old in Chicago, Cook County, the U.S. and Illinois as a whole improved substantially, though still an issue. However, there are parts of south, west and central Illinois that remain high and have out of school and out of work rates as high as 63.6%.

For Latinos in Chicago and Cook County, out of school and out of work rates increased, especially for females.

Teen employment in mid-sized cities and rural areas declined substantially.

In an economy which is susceptible to fluctuations, there are certain marginalized groups and geographic locations, that are particularly vulnerable to structural shifts in the economy, requiring, therefore, focused efforts to pursue policies that create opportunities for more people in more places to participate in the economy as it evolves.

We hope that this report is yet another clarion call for a broad-based attack on poverty and racial disparities in access to economic and educational opportunities.

Speaking at the press event hosted by Alternative Schools Network besides GCI Director, were Congressman Danny Davis, Democratic Congressional Candidate and Cook County Commissioner Jesus Garcia, along with Alma Anaya, Democratic Candidate for Cook County Commissioner.  Also attending were directors of organizations that have been co-sponsors for these employment reports produced by GCI for Alternative Schools Network, including Chicago Area Project, Westside Health Authority, Instituto del Progreso Latino. There were also young people from Innovation High School.

We had the opportunity to answer questions from the press and used the opportunity to emphasize job training, small business incubators, and preparation for opportunities in advanced manufacturing.  Given how creative young people are and given the character of the evolving economy, we also emphasized the importance of providing the conditions for innovation to spawn.

We also had a question about who we wanted the report to reach – who we wanted to take action. Our response:  everybody – including policy makers at the federal, state and local levels and the corporate sector.  We also emphasized that we thought it was important for more resources to be directed to those on the ground who, for years, have been working with young people to be connected, e.g. including helping them to get job ready.  As one director said to us, “Help the folks that know what they are doing to connect people to jobs.”

Unemployment rate for Chicago’s black youth improves: report

In Peoria, Kankakee, Tazewell and Sangamon counties, the decline of good-paying manufacturing jobs and the rise of low-wage retail jobs have changed the employment prospects of youths and adults. (David Paul Morris / Bloomberg)

The Chicago Tribune reports on Great Cities Institute’s new report, Industrial Restructuring and the Continuing Impact on Youth Employment in Illinois. The report is the latest in a series on youth unemployment commissioned by Alternative Schools Network.

A new report on youth unemployment in Illinois offers some good news: The alarmingly high rate of young black men and women in Chicago who are neither working nor in school dropped markedly between 2014 and 2016 as the economy continued its recovery from the Great Recession.

But there is plenty of bad news, as white and Hispanic women in Chicago saw their rates of disconnection from work and school climb. And researchers for the first time examined youth joblessness in mostly white downstate areas, finding pockets of rural Illinois where the crisis is particularly severe.

Full Story from Chicago Tribune »

Industrial Restructuring and the Continuing Impact on Youth Employment in Illinois

Executive Summary:

Since 2016, the Great Cities Institute (GCI) has produced a series of reports for the Alternative Schools Network that have documented employment and related challenges that young people face. These reports have primarily focused on Chicago and Cook County with comparisons to similar sized cities, counties, Illinois, and the U.S. In 2017, GCI’s report, Abandoned in their Neighborhoods: Youth Joblessness amidst the Flight of Industry and Opportunity focused on changes in the Chicago economy that have impacted the economic circumstances of young people. Factors such as industrial restructuring, the movement of jobs from neighborhoods, and the impact of the Great Recession help explain present declining employment of young people.

We now turn our focus to analyze employment conditions for young people in areas throughout the state of Illinois. This report is unique in that it provides a more detailed view of youth jobless and jobless and out of school data throughout the state of Illinois than what has been analyzed to date and has findings that have implications for the direction of future policy aimed at improving employment conditions for young people in Illinois and the economy more broadly.

This report Industrial Restructuring and the Continuing Impact on Youth Employment in Illinois, also commissioned by the Alternative Schools Network, updates the following figures: out of work; out of school and out of work; and out of school and out of work with no high school diploma figures for Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, and the U.S. and examines out of work; and out of school and out of work figures in subsections of Illinois. Additionally, data from four Illinois counties are examined as case studies to observe economic transformations in the sectors of the economy in these counties over time, young people’s position in the economy, and the growing poverty in these areas since 1980.

Authors:

Matthew D. Wilson

Teresa L. Córdova, Ph.D.

Read the Full Report Here.

 

“The Whole World is Still Watching”

Protests at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, August 1968.
Charles Phillips—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

The following is a guest blog post by Laura Washington.

On the night of August 28, 1968, thousands of young activists headed for the Democratic National Convention in downtown Chicago, intent on protesting the Vietnam War. Mayor Richard J. Daley dispatched an army of police officers, the National Guard and U.S. Secret Service to contain the protests. Activists appealing for peace were greeted by nightsticks and tear gas.  The resulting riot left them brutally beaten and gassed, as they tried to exercise their First Amendment rights. The debacle was televised and triggered outrage around the nation.

The protestors chanted: “The Whole World is Watching.” Fifty years later, the world is still watching.  In the age of Black Lives Matter, Me-Too, Times Up and Donald J. Trump, that iconic moment offers lessons and raises questions about many issues:  War and peace; government abuse; and police brutality. Who has the right to protest?  Who decides?  What is the role of social protest in the 21st Century?  How have militarization, surveillance and technology changed the way we protest?

On the morning of August 28, 2018, exactly 50 years later, the Great Cities Institute hosted a provocative and urgent program exploring why “The Whole World is Still Watching.” The program was held at the Student Center East, Illinois Room, 750 S Halsted, from 9:00 a.m. – until noon.

About the Author: Laura Washington is a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times.

Research Fellow Rachel Weber Quoted on Sale-Leaseback Real Estate Deals in the Public Sector

Crain’s Chicago Business quotes Rachel Weber, UIC professor of Urban Planning and Policy and GCI Research Fellow, on a Chicago firm acquiring properties from state and local governments via sale-leaseback agreements. This strategy is frequently used in the private sector and allows the entities to deal with budget gaps and pension obligations.

Oak Street Real Estate Capital recently made a $2 billion offer to the state of Connecticut and its capital city, Hartford, to buy multiple government-owned buildings—from libraries to offices to transit-related properties—and lease them back on long-term deals with escalating rent. It’s a strategy they have successfully used for nearly a decade in the private sector. Now they’re trying to convince politicians and municipalities to look past stigmas tainting the privatization of public assets and embrace sale-leaseback deals as a way of plugging budget gaps.

Government tenants are about as investment-grade as they come, and many cities are vulnerable, with downgraded credit ratings that make loading up on debt more difficult. “And you have a segment of the financial industry that knows how to do these public-private deals. They are kind of thinking of themselves as a savior in offering these opportunities,” says Rachel Weber, professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But convincing the public sector to play along could be a heavy lift. While net lease deals have become a more mainstream way for corporations to raise capital in recent years, snakebitten taxpayers have made it tough for local and state politicians to embrace such deals.

 

Read more about the pros and cons of sale-leaseback real estate deals here.