 Illinois has the highest black unemployment rate in the country at 15 percent,
according to a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, or EPI. This has
resulted from policymakers’ yearslong neglect of Illinois’ economy. Illinois’
political leadership has ignored opportunities to encourage economic growth
while enacting taxes and regulations that have stunted job creation. These
anti-job policy decisions have helped create a situation where Illinois’ most
economically vulnerable residents are the least well-off of any state considered
by EPI’s study, which focuses on the half of U.S. states with larger black
populations.
By contrast, pro-growth states such as Indiana, Michigan and Texas record
significantly lower black unemployment rates, with Indiana at 9.6 percent,
Michigan at 9.3 percent and Texas at 6.1 percent – the lowest rate of any state
in the study. The EPI analysis estimates unemployment rates by ethnic groups and
comes ahead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ full release of such annual data.
No state in the Midwest, of which states have available data, comes particularly
close to Illinois’ 15 percent black unemployment rate. Even Michigan, home to
the highest black unemployment rate in the country as recently as 2013, has
significantly improved its standing as its rate declined to 9.3 percent. Ohio
comes in at 10.3 percent and Missouri at 8.2 percent, according to the
estimates.
illinois black employmentAccording to the EPI study, the situation has worsened
in Illinois, with black unemployment rising over the last two years to 15
percent in the second quarter of 2016 from 12.6 percent in the third quarter of
2014. This contrasts with Texas, where the black unemployment rate has improved
over the same time period. The Lone Star State’s black unemployment rate has
fallen over the last two years even in the face of an economic slowdown caused
by the falling price of oil. Illinois’ black unemployment rate is now more than
double Texas’.
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 In particular, Illinois’ black male unemployment rate has been
especially high over recent years. Declining employment in Illinois’
industrial sectors most likely has harmed job opportunities for
black men. According to the BLS’ 2015 annual average data, Illinois’
black male unemployment rate was 15.1 percent, the highest in the
Midwest and more than double Indiana’s rate.
Ominously, the EPI estimates that Illinois’ black unemployment
rate has gone up since the 2015 annual averages. The current black
male unemployment rate would be approximately 19.7 percent assuming
it rose proportionally with total black unemployment. And this
staggering unemployment level comes seven years after the Great
Recession ended.
Black Americans would especially benefit from the pro-growth
economic policies and lower tax burden all of Illinois needs. The
strategy of taxing, spending and tightly regulating business has
failed Illinois, and has hurt black communities in particular.
Policy reforms will encourage investment and hiring in Illinois’
industrial sectors:
- Workers’ compensation reform to put Illinois’ costs in line
with other states
- Spending reforms to control the overall tax burden
manufacturers face
- A property-tax freeze to protect industrial properties from
confiscatory tax rates
- Sales-tax reform to eliminate sales-tax “pyramiding” by
removing the sales tax on manufacturing and other business
inputs
- Labor reforms to guarantee worker choice through
Right-to-Work laws, which attract new manufacturing investments.
The status quo has failed Illinois’ industrial communities,
minority communities and large swaths of people who simply want
decent job opportunities. This has resulted in workers and their
families leaving the state at record rates to find better
opportunities elsewhere, leaving behind those with fewer resources
stuck jobless in the Land of Lincoln.
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