33 Comments - UMAN - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 9:43 am: THE NEW JIM CROWE by Dr. Michelle Alexander. We have know for decades this has been going on. Those who make it turn a blind eye to such disparities. Those who contribute to these stats merely reward those who turn a blind eye. It will continue for many more years because the premise of equality and fairness is highly immortal on many levels. - Downstate Illinois - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 9:45 am: The number one factor in poverty is single parenthood, children born out of wedlock, and other get really bad life decisions, but I guess personal responsibility should not be a factor because it is always somebody’s fault. However I guess we have to blame it all on racism cause if we didn’t we might have to blame it on the political leadership. We can’t do that of course not with liberal Democrats firmly entrenched in these communities from Cairo to Chicago. The problems of poverty are serious but until activists like Heattland Alliance start looking in the mirror at the real roots of poverty their reports aren’t worth the ink to print them out. - VanillaMan - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 9:53 am: The institution that is mostly failing here is family. Marriage enables families as much as education. We must encourage marriages and the formation of families. Children without families are the source of this type of poverty. Governments can help by making marriage and families more attractive. - Anon - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 9:55 am: DI - I agree that “personal responsibility” should be an issue on the table along with programs that provide opportunity for advancement if live a responsible lifestyle. How does a non-minority Democrat address “personal responsibility” without being crucified by the party’s base? Obama tried it early on and, although it endeared him to some white voters he dropped it when he decided to run a “base” campaign in 2012. Republicans try it but they drive minorities to the Democratic party when they do because “personal responsibility” can also be a code name for creating a rigged game based on inherited wealth and current white privilege. - cdog - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:01 am: When Rauner decimated the CCAP (childcare assistance program) last July 1, with his secretive midnight emergency order, guess who was affected most? Does any one have the racial break down of before/during/after the CCAP rule manipulations? (185% / 50% / 162% FPL) Poor blacks got thrown under the crazy train! - sideline watccher - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:01 am: No. NO. No. The number 1 factor in poverty is the quality of education a kid receives. No moral handwringing about single parents. Additionally, when both parents are involved in the upbringing of the kid, the effects of single parenting are mitigated greatly. When the surrounding community has the supports that a child needs, the damaging effects of poverty are greatly mitigated. So a kid from a divorced household or a single parent household for some other reason who lives in a community with quality affordable child care options, good schools, plenty of after school activities, lots of enrichment opportunities, an extended family support system doesn’t fall in to the trap of poverty. - sideline watccher - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:05 am: And please please please remember that it is not only Blacks who use social support services. White people are poor too. See who got thrown under the bus all over the state when the CCAP program was damn near burned to the ground. Pay close attention to south of 1-80. What I will never understand is poor white people who constantly vote against programs they qualify for and need. Senator McCarter’s district has some of the most poor public school kids in the state, and Senator Ryder has some the highest percentages of kids who use medicaid. Listen to the way they talk about funding for this stuff. I don’t get it. - late to the party - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:05 am: “The number one factor in poverty is single parenthood, children born out of wedlock, and other get really bad life decisions, but I guess personal responsibility should not be a factor because it is always somebody’s fault.” DI - Please tell me where and when the child, who is being harmed by education funding inequity and cuts to services, made the choice to have a single parent? What is a 3 year old’s personal responsibility? (banned word) - 2 Smart Tiger - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:24 am: The number 1 factor is institutional racism. Blacks are the last to get hired and first to get fired. A black man with a MBA on avg. will make the same as a white man with just a 4 year degree and sometimes the same as a white man with a HS diplopia. State contracts go to less than 2% of black men and institutions tend not to hire blacks for leadership positions. How many black partners are at Chicago lawyer firms that has 400 or more lawyers working for them? Stats don’t lie. Bad racist public policy hurts everyone. We use the term diversity too loosely. - Rufus - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:24 am: No doubt, Charter schools will solve all these problems. - Anon221 - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:28 am: sideline watcher and late to the party- ++++ Thank you for your excellent responses! **** Counties in Illinois on the Warning List: Alexander, Cass, Clark, Crawford, Fayette, Fulton, Gallatin, Iroquois, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Lawrence, Marion, Massac, Peoria, Rock Island, Saline, Stark, Union, Wabash, Williamson, and Winnebago. Twenty percent (20%) of our counties, outside of Cook, are on this report’s WARNING LIST. With the exception of part of Rock Island and all of Winnebago, they are all below I-80, and nearly half of those below I-70. Every thing may be all peaches and cream in “Lincoln” County, but I fail to see how destroying the social services network, which also helps PREVENT POVERTY issues LOCALLY, is a win-win for our State. Shaking your head and repeating endlessly that there’s no money or that you are frustrated is a sad, sad commentary on some of our so-called public servant legislators and executive(s). It shows exactly where their priorities AREN’T. - anon - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:47 am: === The Illinois school districts with the most students of color receive 16% less in funding per student than districts serving the fewest students of color. === In other words, even though black children are three to four times more likely to be born into poverty, through no fault of their own, their schools get less funding. That’s a public policy to perpetuate and grow inequality. Some day they will be told they just don’t have enough personal responsibility. - Honeybear - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 10:48 am: I’ve got to look at this report. I can’t wait for lunch. This is probably my number one interest is alleviation of poverty. But here is one thing about personal responsibility that many do not get about the African American community. I work in an environment of about 95% African American, black. My coworkers who are too the person very responsible, ALL grew up with at least one responsible hardworking generative (a sociology term which simply means focused on bettering the next generation). Coworkers that had single parents and many of them did, had a harder time but were ultimately successful. Yes, family is a huge factor but it was the responsible/generative trait that I have found to be the factor. Now, the customers I see every day. For the most part struggle with responsibility and have zero generativity. Many children are literally left to their own devices at the earliest possible time. Many kids are absolute terrors in our lobby and the parents do nothing. When you grow up in an environment of worthlessness and despair it is frightfully easy to make bad decisions. Those of us who have been raised in privileged environments must really really keep in mind that the vast majority of people raised in poverty are locked into that system by nearly insurmountable factors. This goes for all races. My mother fled from that in rural Missouri. They called it “gettin above your raising”. Thus you were outcast if you tried to better yourself. Are you ultimately responsible for your own actions, absolutely yes. However, there are so many factors that we who grew up in a different environment can never understand or appreciate. My coworker who sits next to me is black. She grew up with two responsible/generative parents. Yet she got into trouble a lot as a kid. She’s blindingly intelligent and speaks out. But her parents both worked and she had to fend for herself most of her life. She unfortunately experience two kitchen fires, because she was cooking something at a young age. But she now is a fabulous caseworker, she has her Masters degree and is a dear friend. I’m constantly discussing Capfax with her. She’s lucky. So many things could have gone wrong, and actually did, that could have steered her wrong. Poverty issues are incredibly complex. Good family systems are not created in a vacuum. They need a lot of nurturance and maintenance. Cutting social service programs just makes it that much harder for our society to produce good ones. We’ll pay for it one way or another as a society. I prefer to pay upfront and actively fight our social ills. I wish more felt the same way. But there again money and privilege can cover up a lot of irresponsible behavior and bad parenting. - Earnest - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 11:04 am: Honeybear @10:48 Very insightful–thank you. You go to the heart of where you start to address the problem. I would compare it to using real numbers on a budget proposal so you can work on the problem from there. - Anon221 - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 11:10 am: Honeybear, I wish you could have a one-to-one with Diana Rauner. If you get a chance, watch her speech to the United Way of Lake County https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEn8lkomzfM . I think she would benefit greatly from your insights:) Thank you and your co-workers for their very important work! - sideline watccher - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 12:03 pm: Thank you Honeybear. - sideline watcher - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 12:49 pm: I just opened up the poverty map. Look at the counties with the highest percentage of extreme poverty. What are the racial demographics of those counties. Hint: Cook County is not on the list. Nearly every one of them has Republican leadership. And Rauner won every single one of these counties. How’s that working out? Clearly, the tragic consequences of Black poverty aren’t enough to move anyone. How about we take a page out of an old Kennedy playbook and showcase white poverty. Really show it. Dr. King went all through the south talking about the devastating impacts of poverty in the Black community. There wasn’t a war on poverty until Bobby Kennedy went to Appalachia. - Blue dog dem - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 1:01 pm: Once again I ask the question. Who didn’t know these facts. You have to be living under a rock to not see the disparity between races. Admittedly, I didn’t know percentages, but knowing them does not change the heart of a bigot. Everybody cries, ” show me were we can cut spending!” Well, I just found another $500,000 through the states sponsorship of Heartland Alliance. - Allen D - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 1:01 pm: There is so much to this, Poverty, Poor, and Responsibility. Who ultimately has the responsibility over your actions? Until 18 it is your parents, still is just as my parents were responsible for my actions… Education starts at home not in the school, not in front of the television, but by the parents and family and I by no means mean community family, your immediate family… So many times the poor point to others as responsible for the predicament, the reason why poor decisions are made, poor grades are achieved, poor, poor, poor…. They are all poor excuses as to the reason in the first place. When you point a finger at the thing or one who you say is responsible, remember three fingers are pointed back at you. Gone are the days then consequence for actions was taught, there is a consequence for every action made – good or bad – but it an action caused by the individual choices made. What has all this got to do with the price of tea in China? It all comes back to family values; how you are raised… some people should not be parents – at all…. My parents should have not been parents either, we had to move from apt to apt city to city while growing up because of cut off notices, no electric, water, gas, Food. We used WIC, food stamps, community aid, SHARE. As soon as the 5 of us could work we worked in the summer and the money was taken for the family to ea. Clothes were from families who took pity on us or from churches leftovers garage sale… I never had a new piece of clothing that I can remember until I left out on my own at 18 and joined the service.. Even through all of this growing up I had a BAD example to follow or not follow, my father. He told us this all the time; “You choose yourself how to live and make a living, with your body or your brain, the choice is yours” I chose to do it myself, my choice. The consequence for my action is that I have a retirement form the Military, and now work for the state of IL… I have never been arrested, put in jail, killed anyone (out of the military), rioted, blamed anyone for my choices, or took anything from anyone. It really gets to me that so many “FEEL” that they are entitled despite their actions and repeated actions… Learn from your mistakes means that you do not keep repeating them, you find another way… The road to empowerment is a narrow and hard road… the road to failure is WIDE and well-traveled… get on the right road. - Anon221 - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 1:01 pm: sideline watcher- Cook wasn’t on the county list, that’s true, but the detailed breakdown in the Chicago Community area section shows where the Warning areas are. Rauner has only visited 35 counties, Evelyn’s been to all of ‘em. Maybe she should form a new workin’ commission and get back out on the road again. (some snark) Snark aside, each of the counties on the Warning list should be acknowledged by their legislative representatives (House and Senate), and those same legislators should be scrutinized by the media, businesses, non-profits, and, most importantly, the People in those counties for how they have been voting lately and who they (the legislators) have their hands out for. - Honeybear - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 1:47 pm: -It really gets to me that so many “FEEL” that they are entitled despite their actions and repeated actions… Learn from your mistakes means that you do not keep repeating them, you find another way- Kind of like the “taxpayers” always crying for tax breaks? Or large corporations “feeling” like they are burdened by taxes when they are making record profits? - sideline watcher - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 1:48 pm: anon221…totally agreed. - EduMom - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 1:53 pm: 2 Smart Tiger – Of course stats lie! That’s what we take stat class for, to learn how to make the stats say what we want them to. With all the talk about ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ in the business world today, blacks, Asians and other minorities are always the first to be looked at in order for us not to be called out on being racist! Late to the party – I have 4 children of my own. Why am **I** responsible for anybody’s 3 year old child? The answer is I am not. I am responsible for myself and my own family. While unfortunate for a 3 year old who has a single parent who chooses the opposite of what is good for her/his child, that is not *my* responsibility. Allen D – You’re spot on! - Allen D - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 2:30 pm: ** Honeybear — Kind of like the “taxpayers” always crying for tax breaks? Or large corporations “feeling” like they are burdened by taxes when they are making record profits? ** Exactly — and like Union workers crying for more and more when there isn’t more to give. - 2SmartTiger - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 2:34 pm: @EduMom You are not responsible for anybody’s 3 year old child. This is about institutional racism. In 2015, Ameren awarded 13 percent of its contract dollars – or $306 million – to businesses owned by minorities, women and veterans (white women earning about 50 percent of that. Level the playing field. Just saying…. - Big Joe - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 2:37 pm: Allen D. Thanks for the great post. - Anon221 - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 2:52 pm: EduMom- “Why am **I** responsible for anybody’s 3 year old child? The answer is I am not. I am responsible for myself and my own family.” **** Then why am I responsible for paying taxes to support schools, roads, bridges, library districts, municipal stormwater districts, etc., etc.? You started down the “we should all stand alone road”, I’m just travelin’ a bit further. Standing apart, stepping aside, and turning your back- three choices you can make. But, do they make the world a truly better place? - Honeybear - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 2:58 pm: Nice play Allen D, I’ve got to give it to you but we can keep returning each others serve with this… Kinda like DCEO giving hundreds of millions out while only adding a couple hundred jobs? your serve admittedly this is kinda fun. - yinn - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 3:48 pm: ==The number one factor in poverty is single parenthood, children born out of wedlock, and other get really bad life decisions== No, it’s the other way around. Also, if you take poverty out of the equation, we still have one of the best educational systems in the world. - yinn - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 3:53 pm: When you grow up in an environment of worthlessness and despair it is frightfully easy to make bad decisions. - yinn - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 3:55 pm: Whoops! Too quick on the draw. ==When you grow up in an environment of worthlessness and despair it is frightfully easy to make bad decisions.== When you have nothing left to lose, you are the very definition of a loser and will tend to act accordingly. - Demoralized - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 4:13 pm: ==While unfortunate for a 3 year old who has a single parent who chooses the opposite of what is good for her/his child, that is not *my* responsibility.== What the heck is wrong with you? - Mama - Wednesday, Feb 3, 16 @ 4:16 pm: Allen D, my father. He told us this all the time; “You choose yourself how to live and make a living, with your body or your brain, the choice is yours” The difference between you and others is your father gave you good advice, and you decided you wanted a better life. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.