According to an article in WBEZ News, the middle class is now nearly nonexistent in Chicago, which is causing concern among those who fear the changes this shift will bring with it.
The article points out that in the 1970s, half of Chicago was middle income, whereas in 2017 it shrank to 16 percent, with 22 percent classified as higher income and 62 percent as lower income.
Mark Glennon of the current affairs website Wirepoints said a number of factors contribute to this phenomenon.
"Deliberately or not, Chicago is in a race to gentrify faster than its historical middle class flees," Glennon told the Chicago City Wire. "Parts of the city remain very attractive for high-end white collar professionals, well-off empty nesters and millennials who like 24/7 urban homes: Their population is growing."
WBEZ reported that the University of Illinois at Chicago claims that higher-income families and individuals are moving into the North Side, while middle-class ones are relocating because taxes and other burdens make living in the area unrealistic.
"The city, like the state, is simply not a reasonable place for any employer paying middle-class wages to locate," Glennon said. "Legacy debt (especially pensions), institutionalized graft and government incompetence make taxes and regulatory burdens insufferable."
One of the newest trends in the shifting of classes in Chicago is that of progressives moving up, Glennon said.
"Most recently, radically Left progressives are ascending, terrifying employers with far-out ideas like universal basic income, rent control and a financial transaction tax," Glennon said.
While the shrinking middle class cannot be debated or argued, Glennon said, he believes the middle class could again grow in Chicago—but that will take effort, and reform in state government.
"Nothing will change unless the state and all overlapping units of government in Chicago embrace drastic, structural reforms," Glennon said. "The fiscal crisis in Chicago and the state is a consolidated one, overlapping tax burdens and share governmental responsibilities. Each must adopt pretty much every reform that’s ever been mentioned, large and small, on an emergency basis."
These reforms, Glennon said, include a constitutional amendment to remove the pension protection clause, collective bargaining reforms, consolidating units of government, bringing in ethics reforms, replacing leadership in the General Assembly and removing the Chicago Teachers Union, in addition to multiple other reforms.
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