With the planned closing of Brach’s Confections Inc.’s West Side facility, Chicago will lose another 1,100 jobs and a homegrown business. As a result, homeowners will be forced to pick up the slack, just as they do every time a business leaves the city and the county.
Unfortunately this is not a new story for Chicago or Cook County. From 1993 to 1998, the number of manufacturing jobs in Cook County actually declined by 1 percent, and the number of manufacturing companies located in Cook stayed flat. During the same period the number of manufacturing jobs and manufacturers located in the collar counties grew significantly.
A large reason why Cook County continues to lose living-wage jobs is the high tax burden on business. Property taxes in Cook County are significantly higher than the collar counties.
Cook County Assessor James Houlihan, after consultation with the broad-based Tax Policy Forum, has proposed to improve the manufacturing climate in Cook County by lowering the assessment level on industrial property from 36 percent to 33 percent. This proposed reform will help to improve the climate for recruiting and retaining manufacturers in Cook County. Over time a stronger manufacturing base will mean less of a burden on homeowners, and jobs for a growing workforce.
