While major headlines broke over news that Chicago was the only one of America’s largest 20 cities to shrink from July 2015 to July 2016, most of Illinois’ other cities with 50,000 people or more also lost population.
Illinois lost more millennial college students than any other state except New Jersey between 2000 and 2014, and Illinois’ loss of young people appears to be accelerating.
Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.