
The middle class is shrinking and in Chicago it’s almost gone - SQL2219
https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-everywhere-in-chicago-its-almost-gone/e63cb407-5d1e-41b1-9124-a717d4fb1b0b
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tptacek
We should be careful with maps like this of Chicago, since the time period
we're talking about (1970-) coincides with the phasing out of redlining, which
kept black families out of white stronghold neighborhoods. It could just be
that what you're looking at is the gentrification of the north side and "white
flight" into the suburbs.

Also, the numbers for this map don't sync up with the "rich blocks, poor
blocks" census maps of Chicago. For instance, these maps appear to show
Portage Park and Jefferson Park as low-income neighborhoods; that's not what
the 2010 census map shows (substantially above the state median!), nor what
anyone would expect if they were familiar with those neighborhoods, which are
both middle class enclaves. In the 2010 census maps, as soon as Austin gives
way to Belmont-Cragin, we're back into middle class neighborhoods on the west
side.

This map also has Mt. Greenwood as a poor neighborhood. Unless we suddenly
stopped paying cops and firefighters, that seems pretty unlikely. Someone else
familiar with the city got an idea of what's going on here?

~~~
kasey_junk
The linked blog post is better. Reading through the methodology it seems this
is just white flight. At least without representing the full regional map that
would be the easiest conclusion.

~~~
tptacek
They also don't mention the closing of the US Steel plants in this article,
even though for the time frame they're discussing it was probably the single
most important event for the south side middle class.

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losvedir
Hmm, following the link to look at more charts of the underlying data I'm
confused about how to interpret this.

First, the definition of "middle class" they're using is literally average
Chicago income, not fixed to some inflation adjusted amount or compared to the
U. S. as a whole. I didn't see at a glance if that average income changed over
the time. If the average income rose, but the distribution changed, that's not
necessarily the middle class being "almost gone".

Also, there's a lot on uncontrolled confounders here. Age is a big one. It
mentions that half of census regions saw their average income decline by 20%
but that of those regions the majority of people there are under 19 (!).

So one interpretation of the data could be that the city as a whole got richer
but a few small areas stopped having kids.

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pmorici
If the modern day poor are living an equivalent life style to the middle class
from 50 years ago is that really a problem? That’s what part of this article
seems to describe. Also would be interesting how much of this is attributable
to the rise in prevalence of two income households. 2x a middle income would
be considered wealthy by the measure used in this study

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I don't understand where you're asserting the article says that. The fact that
neighborhoods whose per capita income was around the middle in 1970 are in the
lower quintiles now does not mean that the 1970 middle class and the 2017
lower class have "equivalent lifestyles." It means the neighborhoods are
poorer.

~~~
kasey_junk
They literally outline a house that has changed occupants (white/middle class
to Latino/lower class) but the living/working situation was the same.

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jaabe
How is the middle class in the US in general? This is completely anecdotal and
based on random strangers on the internet, so it may be wrong, but Americans
seem more careful with their money today than they did 15 years ago.

I buy a lot of board games, and I’ve noticed how discussions on $100
kickstarters have started being about how it could break someone’s budget. I’m
personally part of the Scandinavian middle class, and a hall mark of that, is
that you can spend $100 on something silly and not worry about it.

It’s extremely poor data of course, but it’s something I just never saw 15
years ago.

~~~
mongol
Scandinavian middle class is not quite so uniform. Norweigian is considerably
more wealthy than Swedish. I would guess Danish inbetween though closer to
Swedish. I actually guess you are Norweigian!

~~~
jaabe
Norwegians are in a league of their own, that’s true, though it’s more their
society that had money and not private citizens as such. They generally also
have rather high prices on everything.

I’m Danish though.

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forrestthewoods
> For UIC to consider a census tract middle income, the average per capita
> income there had to fall between $28,712 and $43,068.

What a hilariously narrow definition of “middle class”. That’s roughly $14.35
to $21.53 per hour.

This entire analysis is a waste of time.

Is the underlying data available? I’d love to take a crack at producing some
better visualizations.

~~~
rjf72
I suspect they were using the data from here [1]. Quite well organized and
easy to play with, even has numeric indexing of the various areas so you can
mix and match the data easily!

[1] -
[https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdph/provdrs/health_da...](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdph/provdrs/health_data_and_reports/svcs/office_of_epidemiologydataanalysisrequests.html)

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ng12
It's very obvious to me that the largest American cities are built for the
very wealthy and the very poor. If you can afford to move out you can greatly
increase your quality of life elsewhere.

~~~
sonnyblarney
In the 1970's crime spike in many American cities, and the 'burbs' became a
real aspiration. The middle class simply moved out.

American cities have mostly 'business cores' anyhow, with big banking
buildings, not like in Europe where they're pedestrian and have homes.

In some cities, there's been a renaissance of urban living and people moving
back in since the 2000's, but it depends on the city.

My guess is that 80% of what's going on here is just that: demographic
migration.

What we need is greater Chicago data and probably statewide as well.

I suspect you'll find the 'exaburbs' doing really well.

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mvyo
> A city census tract was considered “middle income” if its average per capita
> income fell between 80 and 120 percent of the metro-wide average for that
> year

The "middle class" term should be replaced in our language with something more
concrete. It's not even a class after all. It's just an arbitrary label that
doesn't have any useful meaning.

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acchow
In San Francisco, you actually have the new housing developments pay for the
construction of Below Market Rate units. This makes new housing even more
expensive and effectively prices out the middle class. The lower class can buy
BMR units tho.

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droithomme
Moreso, high income and low income have both decreased as well. Instead
there's been large gains in "very high" income, and "very low" income. Other
categories have essentially evaporated.

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manigandham
Just did taxes. Middle class and bill went up significantly due to completely
destroyed deductions limit.

Meanwhile people I know who make far less are getting great refunds and my
rich friends don't notice anything different personally but their businesses
are all saving money.

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akulbe
I know the original article provides _some_ data in terms of what the
"classes" are.

It would be nice to have some DEFINITIVE numbers that says what the class
ranges are.

It seems like a moving target, and subject to wide interpretation.

What salary ranges constitute poverty? middle class? upper-middle class? upper
class? insane 1%?

Is there even anything definitive to point to for these numbers?

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jseliger
Chicago likely has harsh zoning laws that raise the cost of housing and also
imposes steep taxes for not-great public services
([https://www.illinoispolicy.org/study-illinois-home-to-
highes...](https://www.illinoispolicy.org/study-illinois-home-to-highest-
overall-tax-burden-in-the-nation/)). Should it be any surprise that the middle
class is moving to Phoenix, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, and Florida?

Perhaps we ought to lower the cost of living
([https://www.econlib.org/yimby/](https://www.econlib.org/yimby/)) in Chicago,
along with other cities like New York and Boston.

~~~
nostromo
I agree that’s likely true for New York and Boston (and San Francisco) but
Chicago is actually fairly developer friendly and ok with density.

I think Chicago’s taxation is the problem. The taxes are the highest in the
nation and have scared off the middle class.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Not only are they the highest, they have to keep going up for the next few
decades due to the structural debt of the city and the state.

~~~
dvtrn
_due to the structural debt of the city and the state._

That's a very soft way of saying "we have a super, mega, ridiculous pension
crisis sucking the city dry"

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danablast2
They've transitioned into the Pension Class.

------
rjf72
There is one very key issue here that is often overlooked. Here are two
datums. The first [1] is Chicago community areas by per capita income. The
second [2] is the same areas by fertility rate. There is an _extremely_ strong
correlation between these two datums. This holds everywhere from our world at
large, to individual countries, to even community areas within an arbitrary
city in the US. The areas with the lowest fertility rate is "Loop" with a
fertility rate of 24.3 and a per capita income of $65,526. The area with the
highest fertility rate is South Lawndale with a fertility rate of 99.6, more
than 400% that of Loop. And they have a per capita income of $10,402.

While there may be some exceptions, they are indeed the exception. This holds
true everywhere. These [3] are data for the US as a whole contrasting
fertility vs income. Once again those earning less than $10,000 have a
fertility rate more than 20 points higher (150%) the rate of those earning
$200k+ per year. And there is a disconcertingly smooth gradient in between. As
an aside there are also strong links between fertility and low education and
high religiosity as well as low income.

Think about what this means for each generation of children. An ever larger
portion of children end up coming from these families with low income, low
education, and high religiosity. And now this even larger portion of society
will go on to spread their genes in a comparable way meaning you'll see an
_even higher_ chunk of children from the next generation coming from these
groups. Poverty gets turned into a virus. Bringing people out of poverty might
be a solution if not for the fact that then when people emerge from poverty,
they stop having as many children.

And another issue here is that fertility rate understates the issue! When one
group has the same number of children but has them younger, this has a direct
effect on 'real' fertility rates. Imagine there are two groups with an
identical fertility rate. However, one has children at 15 years of age on
average, and another on 30 (using these numbers only for convenient math). By
the time the 30 group has had their child the 15 group has had a child, and
that child is now also having a child! You have the exact same fertility rate
on paper, but in terms of population impact the young group has a 100% greater
fertility rate.

Ultimately people who can in no way expect to be able to provide even a half
decent upbringing for children need to stop having so many children. At the
same time people who actually can afford to help provide a great life for a
new generation need to stop being so self centered and do just that. Until
that happens what do people expect to see? You're going to see poverty
spreading rapidly _even if_ it was holding completely level simply because
you'll see more new people in poor families.

Keep in mind the twisted nature of exponential growth. If you have a
population of 10,000,000,000 with a fertility rate of 2 and then a population
of 10 with a fertility rate of 4, that population of 10 will become the
majority and in the longrun approach becoming 100% of the population. You
cannot overstate the relevance of fertility rates if you at all care about
socioeconomic issues.

[1] - [https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-
Services/Census-...](https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-
Services/Census-Data-Selected-socioeconomic-indicators-in-C/kn9c-c2s2/data)

[2] - [https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-
Services/Public-...](https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-
Services/Public-Health-Statistics-General-fertility-rates-i/g5zk-9ycw/data)

[3] - [https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-
fam...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-
income-in-the-us/)

~~~
fiestaman
I feel like this has been the case for a long time, though, maybe forever. I
recall the stereotype of the Irish Catholic family, for one.

------
adamnemecek
What's everyone's opinion of Andrew Yang?

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sandworm101
Is this not the goal? Everyone seems to want this. Reduced taxes for the rich.
Deregulation. A better "business environment" due to "small government". The
continuation of employer-provided healthcare. Stricter intelectual property
laws. Ever single domestic policy choice of late seems determined to do this.
Middle america should be happy. They keep voting for this stuff.

~~~
jedmeyers
Chicago has been overwhelmingly governed by the Democrats, yet they things
you've listed are usually pushed by the Republicans. And people leaving are
usually going to the majority Republican states and cities. How can you
explain this phenomenon?

~~~
sandworm101
Chicago's problems are caused by things well beyond chicago. These local
issues are driven by national choices. Elect all the best mayors you can, but
America's economy is dominated by the national government, and to a lesser
extent states. Chicago's problems will be solved when the nation breaks free
of the ussual squabbles and opts to resolve social issues rather than scream
dogma at each other.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Chicago, and Illinois, has made its own problems far worse than other cities
and states by a completely corrupting their defined benefit pension system.
Also see NJ/CT/KY. They have hundreds of billions in debt coming due, the
figures are staggering. It also doesn’t help that the weather in Chicago is
not to most people’s liking, so other than employment or existing family, most
people aren’t going to choose to move to Chicago.

When Warren Buffet says he’s avoiding doing business for the next few decades
in certain regions due to the defined benefit pension debt, I would certainly
be making sure I have backup options or a way out.

~~~
grayed-down
I'm not questioning or disbelieving the veracity of your statement, but do you
know where Buffett made those comments? I'm not seeing anything in a casual
search and that would be interesting to parrot around.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I think it was in one of his letters from a couple years ago too, but he most
recently said it a week or two ago:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/full-transcript-
billionaire-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/full-transcript-billionaire-
investor-warren-buffett-speaks-with-cnbcs-becky-quick-on-squawk-box-
today.html)

> if I were relocating into some state that had a huge unfunded pension plan
> I’m walking into liabilities. ’Cause I mean, who knows whether they’re gonna
> get it from the corporate income tax or my employees-- you know, with
> personal income taxes or what. But that-- that liability isn’t gonna-- you
> can’t ship it offshore or anything like that. And those are big numbers,
> really big numbers. And they may come--you can delay a long time. I mean,
> they-- you’re getting pushed maybe somewhat. But the politicians are the
> ones that really haven’t attacked it in a good many states. And when you see
> what they would have to do-- I say to myself, “Why do I wanna build a plant
> there that has to sit there for 30 or 40 years?” ’Cause I’ll be here for the
> life of the pension-- plan-- and they will come after corporations, they’ll
> come after individuals. They-- just-- they’re gonna have to raise a lotta
> money.

~~~
grayed-down
Thanks for that! And I hate to say this, but Buffett is almost damnable for
saying this because of the party and candidates he almost exclusively
supports.

