Sunday, March 29, 2009

Saving Chicago's Middle Class

I blog Progress Illinois' post here since the 6th is considered a largely middle class area so this should get some play on the blog:
It's no secret that income inequality has widened dramatically in the last 30 years. Between 1979 and 2005, the top five percent of American families saw their real incomes increase 81 percent while the lowest-income fifth saw their real incomes decline by one percent

The gap is often most stark in urban areas. Chicagoland's middle class population -- defined as those who earn between 80 percent and 150 percent of their metro area’s median income -- declined by 14 percent between 1970 and 2005. The top 10 percent of employees now earn 6.3 times more than the bottom 10 percent of the city’s workforce.

The take-away: Chicago's once-vibrant middle class is slowly vanishing.
Go there with some ideas Progess Illinois offers. My only opposition to some of their ideas is to a city minimum wage. I don't believe that it's a government role to tell a business how much they should pay their workers. At least to set a price ceiling on labor although if one wanted to do that then perhaps instead of setting a minimum price perhaps minimum conditions.

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