Population Implosion

Over the next four years and maybe over the next century the results of the last election will be endlessly thrashed out, argued over, and complained about. The explanation presently being preferred is that while white working class voters turned out for Trump but black voters didn’t turn out for Clinton. I wonder whether that’s actually what happened and I’m going to suggest an alternative explanation.

The graph above illustrates the change in Chicago’s population over the period of the last 25 years. The Chicago Tribune noted:

By almost every metric, Illinois’ population is sharply declining, largely because residents are fleeing the state. The Tribune surveyed dozens of former residents who’ve left within the last five years, and each offered their own list of reasons for doing so. Common reasons include high taxes, the state budget stalemate, crime, the unemployment rate and the weather. Census data released Thursday suggest the root of the problem is in the Chicago metropolitan area, which in 2015 saw its first population decline since at least 1990.

Chicago’s metropolitan statistical area, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the city and suburbs and extends into Wisconsin and Indiana.

The Chicago area lost an estimated 6,263 residents in 2015 — the greatest loss of any metropolitan area in the country. That puts the region’s population at 9.5 million.

While the numbers fell overall, there were some bright spots in the Chicago area: Will, Kane, McHenry and Kendall counties saw growth spurts, according to census data.

The Chicago region’s decline extended to the state. In fact, Illinois was one of just seven states to see a population dip in 2015, and had the second-greatest decline rate last year after West Virginia, census data show. While the state’s population dropped by 7,391 people in 2014, the number more than tripled in 2015, to 22,194.

Illinois’s total population is believed to have declined over the last few years.

In addition the black and white birth rate have been about the same for years while the black death rate is substantially higher.

I can’t help but wonder if the actual number of black voters in the North, particularly in the Midwest states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin isn’t a lot lower than we think it is.

When he failed to secure re-election to the House of Representatives, Davy Crockett famously said “You can all go to hell; I’m going to Texas”. It may be that black voters have said the same thing to northern cities in favor of the more favorable economic conditions not only in Texas but in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Illinois isn’t alone. California leads the nation in net domestic outmigration. If it weren’t for Asian immigration, California would actually have lost population.

However, in Illinois’s case the actual decline in population has been matched by a decline in median incomes:

The emphasis by the Democrats who control Illinois’s legislature has been on the need for more revenue. Declining population and declining real incomes translate into less total income in the state.

There are only a handful of possible remedies. Either Illinois must cut spending to match revenues or the state must take an ever-larger slice of people’s incomes. That in turn will result in decreased private sector economic activity. It’s a positive feedback loop.

I think there’s got to be a balance of spending cuts with revenue increases. That’s something that the Illinois Democratic leadership has refused to do.

If you want an explanation for why Speaker Madigan’s lost his Illinois House supermajority, you don’t need to look any farther.