Why is Illinois so stingy?
One of every six of its residents is poor, but the state is far from poverty-stricken. In fact, Illinois is one of the richest states in the nation. It has a per capita income of $16,442 and ranks 11th among the states in that measure of personal wealth.
Yet, Illinois citizens are tightfisted when it comes to sharing that wealth.
Consider:
– Illinois ranks 44th in the nation in its per-capita expenditures for elementary and secondary education, according to a recent study by the Center for the Study of Educational Finance, in Normal, Ill. Just 10 years ago, it was 7th.
– The buying power of the monthly public aid financial grant in Illinois is less than half what it was in 1970, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. In only three other states have welfare recipients experienced a greater deterioriation of purchasing power.
– Unlike other populous states, such as New York and Massachusetts, Illinois has not built or funded public housing for the poor. The single exception was a $9 million appropriation more than 40 years ago that helped construct 1,398 housing units in Chicago. In comparison, more than half the 80,000 public housing units in Massachusetts were built by that state, which has spent more than $200 million over the last six years to renovate them.
– Illinois ranks 44th among the states in its investment in disadvantaged peo-ple and communities, according to the Washington-based Corporation for Enterprise Development. In determining the ranking, the researchers looked at such things as job training programs, child care, welfare-to-work efforts and the stability of social welfare funding.
”Why is Illinois so hard?” asks Edna Pardo, the president of the Chicago League of Women Voters.
It`s not a new question. And it is not one that lends itself to a simple answer.
Part of the explanation, certainly, has to do with the strong element of conservatism that has long dominated politics and government in Illinois, especially during the last eight years under the New Federalism of President Ronald Reagan.
”We`ve had a really conservative era here in Illinois which has not been favorable to spending in the public sector,” says G. Alan Hickrod, the Illinois State University professor who headed the school spending study.
”You might say, `Well, that`s happened everywhere,` but it set in heavier in Illinois.”
The poor in other large states, such as New York, Massachusetts and Michigan, also suffered during the Reagan years, but not to the same extent as the 1.8 million low-income people in Illinois.
For example, public aid recipients in those states saw the buying power of their monthly grants shrink significantly-by about a third in each case. Yet that erosion was much less onerous than the 53.1 percent loss in Illinois. In funding for education, New York ranked 6th, Michigan 15th and Massachusetts 38th in the recent study.
”We`re a more liberal state,” says Jeanne Frankl, the executive director of the Public Education Association, a 92-year-old citizens watchdog group for New York City`s schools.
”The tradition of New York as the harbor of entering into the United States, the place of assimilation of the immigrants, the home of the radical movements of the nation is really a very strong part of the ethos of New York. There really is a very strong tradition in the state of good government and concern for the disadvantaged.”
In Illinois, the poor have less clout.
”The poorer communities are in no position to bring the pressure to bear that the wealthier communities can,” notes Supt. Donald E. Skidmore of Antioch Elementary School District 34 in Lake County.
One reason for this is the Democratic Party in the state. Throughout much of the rest of the nation, Democrats tend to support liberal policies that often mean greater funding for social service programs. But that`s not the case in Illinois.
In Illinois, ”The Democrats have been a conservative force for the shrinkage of government,” says Gary Orfield, a political science professor at the University of Chicago. ”Nobody`s really raising issues in a big way in state politics because they`re afraid someone will yell, `Tax!` ”
Indeed, in each of the last two years, it`s been the far-from-liberal Republican governor, James R. Thompson, who has been the strongest proponent of an increase in the state income tax to raise revenues for improved state services, and Michael Madigan, the Democratic speaker of the Illinois House, who has blocked those efforts.
Tax has been an especially dirty word for Illinois politicians since 1972, when the widely respected Republican Gov. Richard Ogilvie was defeated in his attempt to win a second term. Ogilvie`s loss was blamed on his successful effort to establish a state income tax in 1969.
Except for a temporary increase for an 18-month period in the early 1980s, that tax has remained at the same level-2.5 percent on individuals and 4 percent on corporations-ever since.
”We`re seriously under-taxed,” Orfield argues. ”The state can`t fund anything without robbing some other function.”
Figures from the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in Washington, D.C., seem to bear Orfield out.
Illinois raises only $229 per capita through its income tax on individuals, well under the national average of $303. In comparison, Michigan raises $385, Massachusetts $620 and New York $726.
Yet, the commission statistics also indicate that the combined tax effort of state and local governments in Illinois is slightly above the national average.
This is a reflection of the tax structure in the state, which places a heavy reliance on local property taxes for government funding and a lighter load on state revenue sources. If municipalities and other local governments want more funds, they can raise local taxes, and the money stays in town.
That`s fine for communities with a strong property tax base. They have the flexibility to tax or not to tax.
But property-poor governments, such as Chicago, don`t have any flexibility. Even if they tax at high levels, they aren`t able to raise much money.
One major role of a state government is to counterbalance such inequities between rich and poor communities through its distribution of state funds. But Illinois isn`t able to carry out that role as well as it might because of its relative de-emphasis on state funding.
Mary Decker, executive director of the Metropolitan Planning Council, notes that the shortcomings of the state tax structure are exacerbated by the complexities of the tax system in Cook County, where commercial property is taxed at a much higher rate than residential real estate.
”When you`re already taxing businesses in a really big way and you are afraid to tax the voters, you`re in a real bind,” she says.
Added to this is a widespread concern that the money now being raised is being mis-spent, says Jerome Stermer, president of the Voices for Illinois Children.
”You have a lot of thoughtful citizens who are concerned that our programs are duplicative and uncoordinated,” Stermer says. ”People are not persuaded that the government programs are as effective as they should be.”
Such questions turn the focus away from increased funding to the restructuring of programs at little or no cost to the state, and they are used by some as excuses for taking no action at all.
”It does seem,” says Betty Willhoite, social policy chair of the Chicago League of Women Voters, ”that there is a base of prosperity here. A majority of the people in Illinois are fairly comfortable-or expect to be-and, therefore, don`t see the need for a change in the status quo.
”The media have contributed to this. You have a conservative media in Illinois. You don`t have a strong liberal voice.”
There is also, notes Stermer, ”a significant overlay of race” which tends to identify the poor in Illinois as blacks in Chicago.
Like all stereotypes, this has some basis in fact. Chicago has the greatest number of poor people by far of any area of the state. The population of the Chicago Housing Authority, for example, is larger than that of Rockford, the state`s second largest city.
But poverty isn`t limited to Chicago. Only about half of the welfare recipients in Illinois live in the city. The rest-45 percent-live in Chicago`s suburbs or Downstate.
And the poor of Illinois aren`t all black. Nearly 35 percent of the public aid families in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program are white, while another 10 percent are Hispanics, Asians or other non-blacks.
Still, Stermer notes: ”There is always the suspicion that increased spending for poor people would be disproportionately directed to inner-city communities, be they in East St. Louis or Chicago or those neighborhoods in Decatur or Rockford.
”There`s a certain hostility that may be based in race or may be based in the (American idea) that everyone can make it if they just try a little harder.”
Vincent Lane, the chairman of the CHA, notes: ”You`ve got this perception that the people of public housing aren`t worth a damn, that they`re lazy, shiftless and don`t want to work.
”I`m sure that the same perception is in Massachusetts or California, but you need a governor or an administration who goes to bat for these people because it`s the right thing to do.”
But the realities of geography and politics often get in the way.
Stuck in the far northeast corner of the state, Chicago is a distant place for many Illinois residents who live hundreds of miles away. It is also a distant place from the capital, Springfield, 200 miles to the southwest.
In Massachusetts, Boston is not only the capital, but it is also more centrally located than Chicago, and that`s no small benefit, says Robert McKay, executive director of the Boston-based Council of Large Public Housing Authorities and a former urban renewal official in Chicago.
”Having the capital in the major city,” McKay says, ”makes a world of difference. Having the capital in Boston brings the urban and rural leaders together to meet common problems. The case (for social welfare spending) can be made here much better.
”When I worked in Chicago, going to Springfield, we were always aliens. The view was always that we were the enemy.”
The antagonism toward Chicago is based, in large part, on the struggle for power in Illinois. For years, Chicago dominated state government. In the early 1950s, for example, 42 percent of the state`s residents lived in the city. Today, Chicago has only 26 percent.
The balance of political power has shifted away from the city to the suburbs, which have allied themselves with Downstate. These two strongly conservative elements have been highly skeptical of increased social spending that would benefit Chicago.
Although not every poor person lives in Chicago, the city is nonetheless the most natural governmental entity to lead the fight for more money. But its efforts in recent years have been weak and, often, divided.
This is due to the racial divisions that have driven city politics since the election of Harold Washington as mayor in 1983. In effect, Chicago had two Democratic factions-a predominately black one, headed by Washington, that was supportive of higher government spending, and a predominately white one, of which Madigan was a leader, that saw little need for more money.
The situation is much different in Detroit, where Coleman Young has been mayor since 1974, says Donald West of the Detroit Urban League.
”Detroit is basically a Coleman Young town,” West says. ”He`s still very influential and powerful.”
Detroit is also helped, West says, by a large number of liberal suburbanites and their political representatives.
The battles for power in Illinois among the geographic sections and between the Democratic factions in Chicago have fed a widespread perception that politicians in the state are less interested in the results of their decisions than in who makes those decisions and claims credit.
”The focus of our politicians is on process and on politics, not on policy,” says Louis Masotti, a professor of management and urban development at Northwestern University and the head of the transition team for former Mayor Jane Byrne. ”People in political life care less about outcomes than they do about who does it and how they do it.
”What does Mike Madigan stand for? What he stands for is getting power and holding power. And Thompson (is) the same way.”
Altruism isn`t very strong in Illinois, says Skidmore, the Antioch school superintendent. ”You don`t have mass uprisings and demonstrations about this,” he says.
And Decker of the Metropolitan Planning Council notes that few people in or out of public life in Illinois seem to talk about the right thing to do.
”Even the do-gooders have given up on that as an argument,” she says.
