Illinois continues to lose high-paying jobs: study

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Financial pressures on Illinois residents are deepening, as the state continues to lose economic ground compared to the nation and its own past.

That's the gloomy bottom line on a comprehensive study of the state's economy being released this morning by the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and the two research units of Northern Illinois University at DeKalb.

The study finds that, though the rate of decline has somewhat slowed, Illinois continues to lose good-paying manufacturing jobs to service-industry posts that tend to pay less.

As a result, most Illinois workers actually earned less in 2007 than they did in 2000, adjusted for inflation, with median household income dropping from $54,900 in 1999-2000 to $49,328 today.



The latter number is up a bit from the $48,686 level in 2002-03.

The carnage in the manufacturing sector is particularly telling, according to the study.

As recently as 1990, manufacturing employed one in five Illinoisans, more than any other economic sector. But the state lost ground in the 1990s and has hemorrhaged factory jobs in this decade.

By this year, only 13.2% of the state's workers hold manufacturing jobs — a third below the 1990 figure.

The study by Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, and Northern's Office for Social Policy Research and Center for Governmental Studies, concludes that income inequality in the state is widening, with only those in the highest 20% of households enjoying a real increase in income over the past quarter of a century.

But the study indicates that trend is national and not unique to Illinois.

The study does hint at a clear way for Illinoisans to get out the economic doldrums: education.

"In today's modern economy, the message is: you have to learn to earn," said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago Center.

Among whites, for instance, the average unemployment rate for college graduates is 3.5% — nearly a third of the 9.5% rate for those who failed to complete high school. The spread is an even wider 4.5% to 22.7%, respectively, for African Americans, and 0.5% and 8.3% for Hispanics.

Since 1980, only those with a college degree have seen their income grow here, by 4.3%, with the average wage dropping even for those who attended but did not complete college, down 4.3%.

The high tax,high regulation state of Illinois.Can you say someone is going to lose a Congressional seat after the next census?