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chicagotribune.com
Chicago-area middle class lost most jobs in the recession, study says
Brookings study finds that the greater Chicago area's middle class has been hit hardest with wage losses over the last decade
By Dahleen Glanton, Tribune reporters
6:31 PM CDT, May 9, 2010
The greater Chicago area's economy over the last decade took a heavy toll on middle-income workers who lost jobs because of the recession, according to a study of census data released Sunday by the Brookings Institution.
The middle-wage workers in the Chicago area and parts of Indiana and Wisconsin earned $19.58 per hour in 2008, down 8.1 percent from 2000, Brookings found in an evaluation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
The Chicago area now ranks 96th among the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas in terms of wage loss among middle-income workers.
The Census data, collected over the last 10 years, paint a picture of how large metropolitan areas, where two-thirds of the American population lives, will impact the country as it redefines itself after the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and as the population becomes more diverse.
The area includes Chicago and its collar counties, four Indiana counties and Kenosha, Wis. The statistics, however, primarily reflect the largest cities: Chicago, Naperville and Joliet.
"Chicago has a big and diverse economy and a very regional economy, so it is one of the strongest in the Great Lakes region," said Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at Brookings and co-author of the "State of Metropolitan America" study. "But the decline of wages among working-class families is a reflection of the local economy and where these workers may have been pushed out (of work)."
In Chicago, officials said the most job losses occurred during the last two to three years, during the recession. Like most major cities, the recession has affected jobs that sustained the middle class, such as construction and related industries, the service industry, manufacturing and real estate, officials said.
Illinois lost 387,200 non-farm-related jobs between 2000 and 2009 — 293,000 of them in manufacturing — according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
"This is more of a middle-class recession," said Rita Athas, president of World Business Chicago, a public-private partnership that serves as the city of Chicago's economic development arm. "The recession has hit everyone. But a lot of the job losses tend to be middle management."
In an effort to boost employment opportunities for middle-class workers in technology-related fields, the city will begin a pilot program May 17 designed to retrain white-collar workers who have been laid off from jobs in which they earned $40,000 to $80,000, Athas said.
"These are people who have been hardworking, have had long careers but did not have access to technology training needed for new jobs," Athas said.
Chicago continues to be attractive to companies looking for a diverse labor force, city officials said. According to the study, the area maintained its diverse status with a population that is 44 percent nonwhite. That percentage rose to 65 percent for the three major cities in the area, including Chicago.
Chicago, however, lost its No. 2 ranking in African-American population to Atlanta, which has become a magnet for blacks because of its lower cost of living and strong economy, Singer said. New York remains the city with the most African-Americans.
dglanton@tribune.com
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