Chicago - A message from the station manager

Democrats vs. The Poor & Homeless

The Cold Dark Hearts Of Pat Quinn And Rahm Emanuel

First, a video uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday by Chelsea Jordan. Then, some unpleasant facts.
1. “The governor cut a lot of the funding for people that are in my situation.”


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2. From the Heartland Alliance:
“A Census Bureau report released [last month] presents a startling picture of poverty in Illinois. In combination with the Illinois Commission on the Elimination of Poverty report, the reports reveal that the state is sliding backwards in its stated commitment to halve the number of Illinoisans living in extreme poverty by 2015:

  • Over 1 in 7 (1,879,965 or 15%) of Illinoisans lives with income below the poverty line, a significant increase of nearly 150,000 people since 2010 and more than 380,000 people since 2007 (an increase of 3.1 percentage points from 2007 when it was 11.9%).
  • More than 1 in 5 Illinois children lived in poverty in 2011.
  • 6.9% of Illinoisans lived in extreme poverty in 2011, up 100,000 people in just one year and almost 200,000 people since 2007 before the last recession began.
  • 533,375 Illinoisans living in poverty worked in the last year, 103,447 of them full-time, year round.
  • Median household income in Illinois was $53,234 in 2011, a statistically significant drop from 2010 ($54,644) and a huge decline of $5,500 from 2007 before the last recession began.
  • Income inequality grew across Illinois from 2010 to 2011.
  • Illinois was 1 of only 9 states that had an increase in children living in low-income households (households with an income below 200% of the poverty threshold) in 2011.
    2,245,488 people in Illinois were living on low incomes in 2011. This is an increase of 216,000 people from 2007 before the last recession began.”

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3. From Progress Illinois:
“Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed a $298 million budget for [the Department of Family and Support Services], which is a 15 percent reduction from 2012 spending. The department runs the city’s homeless services and several of its child-care programs.”
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Comments welcome.

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Posted on October 25, 2012