For Release January 17, 2007 at 1 p.m. Central
Contact: Greg LeRoy or Jeff McCourt 312-332-1480 (cell 202-494-0888) or Phil Mattera 202-232-1616

Fifteen Years of Chicago-Area Job Deals Mapped
Study: State Job Subsidies Favor Well-Off Suburban Areas over Chicago, Reinforcing Regional Sprawl and Economic Inequality

Chicago -- Job subsidies granted by several Illinois state agencies have severely shortchanged Chicago and many parts of Cook County. Instead of helping to revitalize areas in the region hardest-hit by plant closings and job flight, the state's development deals have favored affluent, outlying areas with low unemployment and the strongest tax base. The resulting spatial mismatch between new job creation at the fringe and economic need at the core means many transit-dependent workers cannot benefit from regional growth.

Those are the key findings of a report released today at a Chicago press conference. The study, "Gold Collar: How State Job Subsidies in the Chicago Region Favor Affluent Suburbs" maps 780 subsidies granted by the State of Illinois to specific companies from 1990 through 2004. The incentives, which came from ten different programs, had a total value of $1.2 billion.

"Chicago and the poorer parts of Cook County have been severely shortchanged by the State of Illinois when it comes to economic development," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First and co-author of the report. "We suggest the state target its incentives to places that really need help because they have high unemployment or low income."

The report compares the share of subsidy dollars received by different areas to their share of regional population and business establishments. Chicago, which had about 38 percent of the regions population during the period, received only about 15 percent of the subsidies.

In contrast, northern and northwestern Cook County (especially the O'Hare Corridor) and the "collar counties" of DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane and McHenry each received a much higher subsidy share than their regional population share justified. For example, DuPage, with about 11 percent of the region's 1990 population, got 18 percent of the region's subsidy dollars.

The report is freely available at http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/goldcollar.pdf. It was funded by the Ford Foundation.

The report recommends Illinois policymakers consider targeting state business incentives to areas with high unemployment and/or low income, and revising the state's recent business "location efficiency" law to require companies in metropolitan areas with mass transit to locate projects near such service, or to otherwise increase job access.  A final recommendation suggests the state's subsidy disclosure law be amended to require subsidized companies to justify business relocations within Illinois and report on their impact.

"These findings are consistent with similar studies we released last month in Michigan and Minnesota," said LeRoy. "Most states fail to integrate their economic development programs with land use planning. It's a costly mistake with tragic results for big cities and older suburbs."

Good Jobs First is a national resource center promoting accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families. Based in Washington DC, it has project offices in New York and Chicago.