From Greg Hinz at Crain’s Chicago Business:
A new report (scroll down to read) I’ve obtained exclusively from the Illinois Partners for Human Services says agencies serving the disabled, elderly, poor and others collectively are responsible for $3.1 billion a year in direct spending and $1.4 billion in secondary spending. They employ 3.5 percent of the state’s workforce, roughly 169,000 people; and generate $597 million annually in state and local taxes.
Not to mention the value of the services to their recipients.
What’s really fascinating, though, is that such spending, proportionally, tends to be concentrated not so much in Chicago and nearby suburbs, but in rural Downstate areas.
For instance, the report says the Cook County has 262 poor persons and 160 disabled persons for every agency serving their needs. But that ratio is two to three times higher in areas such as Hancock County along the Mississippi River, Pike County west of Springfield and Massac County at the southern tip of the state.
Human service workers make up 2.9 percent of the workforce in Cook County but 4.3 percent in Gallatin County, 5.3 percent in Hardin County, 3.9 percent in Johnson County and 4.8 percent in Lawrence County, for instance.
A lot of Illinoisans believe that the state’s finances are being stressed to send money to greedy and corrupt Chicago. The truth is almost exactly the opposite.
Wait a minute, those figures don’t talk about finances, it’s about agency and employment ratios. The total population of the first three counties is under 32,000, with a total of about 7,000 individuals below the poverty line. They are all river cities. Pike County seems to have a lot of veterans on disability that like to hunt.
The second set of counties has a total population of 26,742, with a total of about 5,567 individuals living below the poverty line. Two of these are big coal counties, or formerly.
I think the difference in scale is pretty much meaningless for comparison sake.
I’m confused too, PD. Administering to the needs of about 450 people per agency in Cook while administering to the needs of 2-3 times per agency elsewhere seems a good thing. (Setting aside that administering to 450 people for an entire agency seems awfully low just on its face).
But this: “Not to mention the value of the services to their recipients.” Seems to blow the whole concept up.