* Poverty rate up 14% in state in 9 yrs.
The number of people living in poverty in Illinois grew by more than 240,000 in the past decade, a research group said.
There were more than 1.5 million people living in poverty last year, a poverty rate of 12.2 percent. That’s up from a 10.7 percent rate in 2000, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Chicago-based Social Impact Research Center at the Heartland Alliance.
Nearly 526,000 children lived in poverty last year, a 16.8 percent rate — up from 14 percent in 2000.
Nationally, the poverty rate was 13.2 percent — 39 million people — up from 12.4 percent. The child poverty rate rose to 17.8 percent from 16.1 percent.
* Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sues debt-settlement firm
Dallas-based Credit Solutions of America accused of leaving consumers in deeper debt
* Boom for community colleges
Ecomony persuades 4-year-school students to look closer to home
* Chicago Public Housing Plan Marks 10 Years
Mixed-income housing is the crown jewel of the Chicago Housing Authority. Ten years ago the agency began its billion-dollar public housing overhaul. The idea behind mixed income is to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and unite different economic classes of people. The Plan for Transformation is behind schedule, at the mercy of a tough economy and subject to ideological debate.
* Office of Cook County president hires law firm to investigate county finances
* City’s test: Clean up corruption
* Fugitive Marco Morales pleads not guilty to 1997 drug charge
* North Carolina man hired as Capitol architect
* Government Files Brief in Conrad Black Supreme Court Appeal
* Gun advocates predict drop in crime if gun ban is lifted
* A target on Chicago
* Gun control is among Supreme Court’s cases
* Supreme Court Reviews Chicago Firefighter Discrimination Case
* No guarantee, but Chicago should get it
* Daley to sign Olympic agreement
“It’s just one of the deals, you sign it. Whether it’s an enforceable agreement is a much more interesting question for someone in my business,” said Pound, an attorney.
“Who can enforce that contract?” He said. “Frankly, as an international organization to come to the courts of Chicago and try and enforce that contract — lots of luck.”
* Daley: Olympics campaign a ‘tough election’
But even as Chicago’s bid organizing committee “counts noses” — as one Chicago 2016 official referred to lobbying and locking in IOC votes — there can still be question marks.
That’s because the IOC votes by secret ballot, so there’s no way to really know who kept their promise.
* Six Olympics protesters charged with mob action
* Springfield’s Olympic offerings: Lincoln and Route 66
* Public schools need total disclosure
* Old Post Office deal not sealed and delivered yet
The sale of the Old Chicago Main Post Office remained a muddled affair Wednesday after the buyer who won it at auction missed a deadline to close the deal. Bill Davies, a globe-trotting investor who pledged $40 million at the Aug. 27 auction for the vacant hulk that spans the Eisenhower Expy., did not close the sale despite having the available funds, said a person representing him.
* Doctors get bonuses from Illinois
Since last year, doctors in the state’s Health Connect program for people on Medicaid have been getting bonuses of $25 per patient if they meet national benchmarks for prevention and management of asthma, diabetes, breast cancer and other chronic conditions.
About 90 percent of doctors from 4,100 sites involved in the program qualified for payments in 2008, and so far, $2.9 million in bonuses has been paid out, the department said Wednesday. The payments give doctors an extra incentive to get patients to do such things as fill prescriptions or get their kids vaccinated, officials said.
To get a bonus, doctors have to perform better than 50 percent of Medicaid doctors nationally.
* Illinois getting health care recruitment help
There’s federal money coming to Illinois to help the state recruit health care workers.
Most of the nearly $500,000 is coming from programs that help to repay the loans of health care workers who go to work in underserved areas.
* More than 3,000 Muslims in Illinois prisons, statistics say
* Pontiac to relive fight for prison
ISU grad student’s film ‘Pontiac’s Rebellion’ to premiere Oct. 24
* CPS Meets With Fenger Parents and Community Residents
* Shocking video of fatal beating hard to watch
* Another boy critically beaten: ‘Blood all over street’
* Degorski eligible for death penalty, jury rules
Second phase of hearing starts Thursday
* Chicago, Boston tie at 10th in hippest college grad cities
* Breast cancer death rates still falling
* Illinois to get shipments of swine flu vaccine
- MrJM - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:08 am:
“Mob Action” may sound a bit worse than it is:
Sec. 25‑1(a)(2) - Mob action consists of any of the following *** The assembly of 2 or more persons to do an unlawful act.
Some days I commit “mob action” twice before breakfast.
– MrJM
- Fed up - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:13 am:
What’s interesting about the Fenger murder is that it is coming out on various blogs that the Chicago Police Dept is 800-1000 officers understaffed. Jody Wies the chief of police was just on the radio and when asked how many police officers there are he wouldn’t answer. Is Daleys Olympic dream more important than the safety of Chicago residents.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:25 am:
Mixed-income housing is the crown jewel of the Chicago Housing Authority. Ten years ago the agency began its billion-dollar public housing overhaul. The idea behind mixed income is to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and unite different economic classes of people.
The number of people living in poverty in Illinois grew by more than 240,000 in the past decade, a research group said.
Also consider how much of an increase we have spent on social programs over the past decade. Gee, maybe if we had spent even more, the poverty rate would have doubled?
I don’t know what we can do about this except make Illinois pro-business and welcome 21st Century businesses into Chicago, like Wal-Mart, Target, Whole Foods, and other modern retail success stories. We can’t keep stonewalling, and playing Robin Hood. It isn’t working, is it?
We definately have a problem, but it is being compounded by the supposed solutions implemented by our current federal, state and local governments. So we are not doing nothing - worse - we seem to be doing the wrong thing!
It is time to stop shoveling our money at poverty and expecting it to disappear. It is time for some pragmatic, effective programs that we can support without driving additional Illinios taxpayers into poverty.
- Leroy - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:29 am:
Why doesn’t Lisa Madigan turn her guns towards the Oppenheimer Fund?
You know, the one that bilked Illinois taxpayers out of millions of dollars in college money?
You think that would be right up her alley.
- Brennan - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:30 am:
VM: Well the residents of Chicago are starting to realize that. That’s why 68% of them support opening a Wal-Mart on the south side despite the fact that the UFCW perpetuates the “race to the bottom” myth.
I still think that what poverty stricken neighborhoods need most is more capitalism and less hand holding from the state which tries to use social services explosions to lift neighborhoods out of poverty. This doesn’t work.
- dupage dan - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:35 am:
Eliminating poverty by the use of public funded social programs is like pushing water up while standing on the bottom of a lake. You move the water around but none of it actually is lifted.
Poverty programs are not money multipliers. Making a community attractive to businesses thru lower taxes and reduced bureaucracy is the great stimulator. Continually demonizing the business sector as robber barons results in a lower tax base and lower revenues as they flee to communities that embrace them. Vive capitalism!
- Quinn T. Sential - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:37 am:
{Why doesn’t Lisa Madigan turn her guns towards the Oppenheimer Fund?}
Go look at the marketing material put out by the State of Illinois on this program, and then look at the prospectus for the Oppenheimer Core Bond Fund, and you will see a significant divergence.
Oppenheimer appears to have done exactly what the prospectus said that they would do; and as is the case with any investement sometimes, they lost.
The big question is; who chose the Core Bond Fund as an acceptable investment vehicle for college funding; and who prepared the state’s marketing materials for this particular investment fund option.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:39 am:
We need a social safety net, but ultimately for capitalism to work you need, um, capital, and that means investment.
The Wal-Mart controversy is a joke. Working-class hero Dennis Gannon of the CFL — he of the $154,000 city pension and $215,000 union salary — protecting residents of the South Side from the investment, “bad” jobs and consumer choices of the world’s largest corporation.
I’m sure the CFL jobs fair for the neighborhood is right around the corner.
Joseph Heller couldn’t come up with something as ridiculous.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:43 am:
Only the WSJ could come up with DC as the “hippest, hottest” city in the country.
I love visiting the DC area for the Revolutionary and Civil war sites, monuments, Smithsonian, National Mall, etc. But even someone as dorky as I knows that place ain’t hip.
They even roll up the sidewalks in Georgetown about 10 p.m. Everyone has to get home to recharge their Blackberrys.
- dupage dan - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 9:51 am:
Wordslinger,
Social safety nets are best when they address a short term crisis like losing ones job or home. Help people out on the short term until they get back on their feet. Long term programs with poorly defined goals are a recipe for long term tax increases with no descernible gain.
The stupidity of denying Chicago citizens the benefits of Wal-Mart from both sides, lower prices and employment is a clear indication of the bankrupt thinking of some progressives.
Real life can sometimes be more ridiculous than fiction - Chicago politics is a prime example.
- Fed up - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 10:04 am:
maybe some of those unemployed could be hired as CHicago police officers it seems the city needs more police.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 10:05 am:
DD, I wouldn’t call these guys progressives. They’re using their clout int the city council to shake down Wal-Mart for concessions.
Rather than make a stand on the South Side, they should invest their time and efforts attempting to organize by their homes in Highland Park and Olympia Fields.
- dupage dan - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 10:08 am:
word,
Just what concessions are they expecting Wal-Mart to make?
Call them what you want - their rhetoric doesn’t sound free market to me.
- Our Time Has Passed - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 10:44 am:
The Chicago Tribune has been featuring an investigative report about the lack of treatment of the mentally ill in Nursing homes and he overuse of Nursing Home care for younger mentally ill citizens. This blog has not discussed this yet.
Fixing this problem will actully save the State of Illinois moeny according to a report Representative Hamos has been circulating for years. The status quo is deteriorating rapidly and will escalate the costs to the state. Most of this cost wil not be shared with the feds. Whereas more cost effective care for the mentally ill is split with the feds.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 10:45 am:
===This blog has not discussed this yet.===
We can’t discuss everything. But, I was planning something for today.
- Leroy - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 11:02 am:
Quinn T. -
That’s not the party line. The party line is a rogue trader made unauthorized trades that went against the prospectus.
Hence, Oppenheimer should be a nice, wide, populist target for Lisa. A proverbial barn, if you will.
She has proven she can push around little no-name corrupt companies. I need to see her take down a fat cat.
- Our Time Has Passed - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 1:19 pm:
==We can’t discuss everything. But, I was planning something for today.==
I thought so and waited to comment.
- Quinn T. Sential - Thursday, Oct 1, 09 @ 7:56 pm:
Leroy,
Read the prospectus.