As the Democratic National Convention enters its second day on Tuesday, Chicago and Illinois as a whole are grappling with some of the highest unemployment rates in the country compared to their peers.
The longtime Democratic Party strongholds of Chicago and Illinois have seen their populations steadily decline over the last decade with relatively high tax rates discouraging residents from sticking around long-term.
That policy regime has cultivated an economic climate that is among the most challenging in the country, with Illinois' unemployment rate ranking the second-worst in the U.S. while Chicago's is tied for the highest among major U.S. metropolitan areas.
The most recent jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) compared the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. and found that as of June 2024, the Chicago metro area had a 6.2% unemployment – tied with Las Vegas for highest in the country.
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That rate is a full percentage point higher than Detroit's 5.2% unemployment rate, which ranks as the second-highest of the Midwestern metro areas and 47th among the 50 largest metro areas.
A broader analysis by the BLS that includes all 389 metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. had the Chicago metro area ranked 368th in the country.
"Chicago has fewer workers and more unemployed residents than before Mayor Brandon Johnson took office in May 2023," the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) noted in a report. "Johnson ran on the idea, and has continuously proclaimed, that his administration is 'making Chicago the most pro-worker city in the country.' There's just one problem with that – today, nearly 100,000 Chicagoans are out of work."
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The think tank added that when narrowing the focus to the Chicago city limits and excluding the broader metro area, the unemployment rate is 7.1%, which is 1.8 percentage points higher than the rate seen in June 2023 and translates to 26,000 more unemployed Chicago residents.
"If Johnson truly wants to turn Chicago into the most pro-worker city in the country, his focus should be on rehabilitating his relationship with the city's business community and finding sustainable solutions to reverse Chicago's high unemployment and population decline rather than hiking taxes on a struggling city," IPI wrote.
The BLS found that in July, Illinois had a 5.2% unemployment rate, trailing only Nevada's 5.4% jobless rate for the highest in the nation. Illinois' unemployment rate is double that of the top five states with the lowest unemployment rates – from South Dakota's 2% to Nebraska's 2.6% – and well above the 4.5% national rate.
IPI noted that the Prairie State added a modest 37,300 jobs compared to a year ago and that "growth ranked Illinois 48th among all states for non-farm job growth at 0.61%. This falls far short of the 1.61% growth the nation had during the year."
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One area in which IPI found Illinois had the highest growth rate in the U.S. was state government jobs, as Illinois added 8,900 jobs for a 6.25% increase.
However, the report noted that Illinois' post-pandemic recovery has lagged and ranks 45th in the nation, with the state having only 15,300 more jobs than in January 2020.
