Serving UIC's Great Cities Commitment: Solutions for Today's Urban Challenges

The portion of young Chicagoans neither going to school nor working is returning to pre-COVID levels — but it’s an uneven recovery that has left behind Black teens as well as adolescents in the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Overall, about 45,000 16- to 24-year-olds in the city are disconnected from both school and work, accounting for roughly 12% of the city’s residents in that age group — a rate just slightly higher than pre-COVID.

“In the aftermath of the pandemic when things looked really shaky, these overall numbers are very encouraging,” said Matthew Wilson, associate director at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Great Cities Institute and one of the authors of a new study on youth disconnection. That was until researchers zeroed in on Black teens, he added: “When I saw these numbers, I thought, ‘Wait a minute.’”

From Chalkbeat Chicago (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

Employment levels in Chicago and beyond have rebounded since the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new report has found teens and young adults across the city, particularly those of color, are still struggling to find consistent work.

The report, published Wednesday by the University of Illinois Chicago’s Great Cities Institute, found that communities are not all recovering from the pandemic at the same pace, as youth joblessness rates in Chicago outpace the rest of Illinois and the country as a whole.

“Black and Latino youth and young adults in Chicago continue to have higher jobless and out-of-school-and-jobless rates compared to White Chicagoans,” the report states, “highlighting the importance of implementing targeted programs to promote more equitable employment opportunities for youth and young adults.”

From WTTW News (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

Released Wednesday, the report conducted by the Great Cities Institute is based on U.S. census data from 2022, the most recent data available from the agency, and looks both at the overall youth unemployment rate and those who are both jobless and out of school.

According to the report, young people in Chicago experienced higher rates of unemployment than those in the suburbs and nationally. The highest rates of joblessness for young people ages 16 to 24 were on the city’s South and West sides.

“Chicago has had a ‘longstanding issue with youth employment,” said Matthew Wilson, one of the report’s authors and associate director for economic and workforce development at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the research arm behind the report. “I think there’s a lot of connections with youth unemployment to some of the social conditions that we see across the city both spatially and racially,” he said.

From Chicago Tribune (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

Public funding of healthcare coverage for the uninsured pays for itself in a panoply of benefits that reach well beyond the individuals who receive such assistance. A review of data by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago research brief, commissioned by the Healthy Illinois Campaign and released at a symposium at the North Lawndale Employment Network offices, shows how two state programs for the uninsured bolster the significant contribution of non-citizen immigrants individuals to the state’s economy and its tax base.

From Lawndale News (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

Immigrant rights advocates on Friday continued to push for one of their top budget priorities: full funding for state-run health care programs that benefit noncitizens, regardless of their immigration status.

Those programs offer health coverage for low-income individuals who would otherwise qualify for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. They have been the source of controversy in the General Assembly, especially after the initial cost of the programs far outpaced the original estimates, forcing Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration to begin capping enrollment and instituting other cost-cutting measures last year.

But advocates for those programs unveiled a new report Friday by the University of Illinois Chicago’s Great Cities Institute that purports to show how the benefits of providing health coverage to the state’s immigrant population extend beyond those individuals to their families, communities and society at large.

“Ample research has shown that coverage improves labor force participation, which adds value to tax bases and reduces the need for financial assistance,” Samantha Sepulveda, one of the authors of the report, said at a gathering of program supporters Friday in Chicago. “It increases early disease detection which reduces long-term medical costs. It relieves financial hardship which helps individuals and members of their household and also improves health outcomes.”

From NPR Illinois (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

A new University of Illinois-Chicago study shows that government funded health insurance for immigrants in Illinois is paying for itself and then some.

The Healthy Illinois Campaign wants to see existing state health insurance programs for immigrant seniors and immigrant adults continued and even expanded. In a study they commissioned from UIC’s Great Cities Institute says funding health care for immigrants, including the undocumented, helps the state.

Lead researcher Matthew Wilson explained why funding health care for immigrants was beneficial.

From Audacy: WBBM NewsRadio (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

Un reporte del Great Cities Institute de la Universidad de Illinois en Chicago señala que el costo de dar cobertura médica sin importar el estatus migratorio de la persona no solo beneficia al inmigrante sino que es positivo para toda su familia y para la sociedad en general.

A report from the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago points out that the cost of providing medical coverage regardless of the person’s immigration status not only benefits the immigrant but is positive for his or her entire family and for society in general.

From LaRaza (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

“Public funding of healthcare coverage for the uninsured pays for itself in a panoply of benefits that reach well beyond the individuals who receive such assistance.” 

So says the “The Benefits of Health Coverage for Immigrants in Illinois” report conducted by the Great Cities Institute (CGI) at the University of Illinois Chicago, commissioned by the Healthy Illinois Campaign and released Friday at a symposium at the North Lawndale Employment Network offices.

“We’ve known all along that covering the uninsured creates benefits that ripple out to society as a whole,” Campaign Director Tovia Siegel said in a press release. “Now, thanks to the work GCI has done, we can see numbers that reinforce our position. Covering everyone, regardless of their immigration status, is not only good for those covered. It’s good for all of us. We’re in this together.”

Healthy Illinois commissioned the study as a part of its campaign to maintain funding and expand eligibility for the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults (HBIA) and Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors (HBIS) programs. Those programs fill coverage gaps for undocumented Illinois residents who are unable to qualify for Medicaid due to their immigration status.

From The Daily Line (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)

As it seeks to protect Illinois’ public funding of health coverage for noncitizens, the Healthy Illinois Campaign is touting the benefits that coverage brings to immigrants, their families, communities and the state as a whole.

From Crain’s Chicago Business (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)