Feeling the Pinch
- If the middle class seems like it's under siege, well, that's because it is.
Across the Chicago metropolitan area, 51 percent of households are maintaining their foothold in the coveted class long associated with home ownership and financial security, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data released Wednesday. That's down from 56 percent in 2000.
For those who have exited the middle class, the trajectory hasn't been good: More Chicago-area households slipped into the ranks of the lower income than the upper income from 2000 to 2014, the analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data found. Wages in all earning groups have fallen during that time.
If the trend continues, local households led by middle-income earners could soon lose the majority.
Detroit II is a lot closer than anyone is noticing - as the middle class can't afford Chicago, they leave. As they leave, revenues fall. As revenues fall....you getting the picture yet Rahm?
Labels: money questions
posted by SCC at 12:05 AM
62 Comments:
How can they force us to live here? FOP won't step up so we need some outside attorneys to fight this.
Rham-ulus says... More taxes are coming our way. Taxes, Taxes and more Taxes... yeah Rham... we don't need to read your lips, more taxes
Moving out of this God forsaken city, county and state looks better each day.
Until the Chicago stop over-regulating, the poor gets poorer and handouts... and the rich get more rich and clouted.
City hall knows this but doesn't care. The alder-creatures and city council are enablers.The politicians are the ones who created this environment.
The middle class aren't the only ones leaving; the jobs are too.
I'm going back to went I came from in a few months. Came here and got broke as hell; and too much drama.
Hey- with all the shootings going on, it's not just middle-class moving out of Chicago.
People in the suburbs are taking second thoughts about coming downtown.
Nothing downtown is worth being caught in a cross-fire.
Don't worry, twenty years from now your pension will be perfectly safe.
They will surely have fully funded the pension plans by then.
Just ask the Teamsters.
Or you could find a department that has a solid retirement plan (before you are too old).
If the thugs decide to move downtown, watch the middle class flee.
Just like Detroit in the 60's.
Who cares if all the middle class leave?
I am sure they can fund the pension plan with all the taxpaying people on EBT, and Section 8.
They pay lots of taxes don't they?
Most of America has slipped into the lower class. Not just in this city. The middle class is a dying breed and it's not at all a problem that's specific to Chicago.
It is the result of progressive rule.
Not Feeling The Pinch --
Chelsea Clinton's husband Marc and his colleagues from Goldman Sachs shutter $25 million hedge fund after losing nearly ALL their investors' money (good thing he still has his $10 million apartment)
* Chelsea Clinton's husband Marc Mezvisnky started Eaglevale Partners in 2011, with two of his former Goldman Sachs coworkers
* Shortly after Mezvinsky started the company he set up the Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity to buy up Greek debt and bank stock
* The group collected $25 million from investors but has been forced to shut down the hedge fund after losing 90 percent of that money
* Eaglevale's flagship fund currently manages $330 million and is [still only] down 1 percent this year
* Mezvinsky, 38, and Chelsea, 36, live in an apartment located on New York City's Madison Square Park
* The residence, which is the depth of an entire city block, was purchased in 2013 by the couple for $10 million
http://tinyurl.com/za3emdj
Ah, these "financial products." The A-listers are doing quite nicely buying and selling debt -- as though it was a tangible bushel of corn or something.
It's not.
Will Mezvinsky and his crew be showing up hat-in-hand on the doorsteps of their victims, saying "Sorry for your loss" and "What can we do so that this doesn't happen again?" AAAhahaha.
I'm leaving also. Any family that can't see the writing on the wall is in trouble. Retire out of here, young people need to go where the jobs are and it isn't in Illinois.
"Detroit II is a lot closer than anyone is noticing - as the middle class can't afford Chicago, they leave. As they leave, revenues fall. As revenues fall....you getting the picture yet Rahm?"
Detroit just shut off water to 20,000 residences for unpaid bills. I believe that one of our "failed-state" suburbs was collecting water bills from its hapless residents and then just -- keeping the money, or spending it on other things.
The last figure I heard was that Chicago is owed over $15 million in water bills by some suburbs, and seems to be making no effort to collect. So who approved this city subsidy to other municipalities? They will come out and walk around the T-wrench shutting you off, though.
Nice.
I cannot in good conscience send my kids to a Chicago Public School. I have to leave the city to send them to a public school in the suburbs that I hope will be safer. My family has been here for a century. It's killing me but this thread is about me.
I will not raise my children in this city. Leaving soon as well.
But won't the trump protesting illegals pick up the slack???
retired now, and left the state....four adult children, three of the four already out, the fourth leaving soon....would encourage anyone still in Chicago to leave....move spouse/significant other and other family members out of Chicago and perhaps out of state (Wisconsin, Indiana?).....those that are stuck in Chicago because of employment, maybe get and share an apartment with others in the same situation, and visit with family on weekends or days off, and give your family members a decent shot at schools and a better environment
I laugh at the "Phone tax" increase that's coming. I already signed up for paperless billing and switched my address to a bogus address in Oak Lawn. I did it with both my homeline and cellphone. Just switch to paperless billing, pick an address and that's it. If you have to order a new piece of equipment or a new phone all you do is tell the clerk that you are not home much and can you send it to your mom's house since she is home all day and that's it. Your new piece of equipment comes there (which is your actual house). They won't think twice about it seeing it as your former address since you're saying it's your mom's house. I did this long ago to avoid the city tax altogether and now the increase won't affect me either way.
Rahm is very aware of this. He is just hanging on so he can meet his loftier goals.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Who cares if all the middle class leave?
I am sure they can fund the pension plan with all the taxpaying people on EBT, and Section 8.
They pay lots of taxes don't they?
=========
Think you got your CLASSES mixed up; you must be talking about the rich because the middle class pays the MOST TAXES... The poor pay nothing and the rich barely pays...
The companies downtown are outsourcing good paying jobs to India. Accenture did it, Aon did it, now Blue Cross is doing it. THOUSANDS of good paying middle class IT jobs have gone / are going overseas. That money is never to be seen again locally. But that is kept hush hush, and the hard working people are forced to move elsewhere to find work and spend their money in other cities. But the top executives get their $10 million bonuses, so they don't care. They just spin it to the media as "good business decisions". The middle class is the tax base for everything, including Obamacare, but the insurance companies are losing money on it, so they pinch pennies. By doing so, they cut the exact tax base that pays for it, only further dooming themselves and this city. India now gets that money, rather than Chicago.
Can't wait to retire and move out of the state. Way to many taxes and it just keeps coming. It's a great idea to keep giving away everything for free to the so called minorities and keep raising taxes to help cover the cost of the give aways. Then they wonder why people and jobs are fleeing Chicago and Illinois. When is enough, enough already.
Yes, and the same people will Keep voting Democrat. Every city run by democratics has Finacial problems etc.
Big changes coming to the country's pension plans,max out your 401k,the feds will have to step in soon!
Look around the city especially downtown. See all those projects being built? The comparisons to Detroit are way off base. Like it or not we are a major tourist destination as well as a desirable place for young professionals to live. There will be two classes left in Chicago. Upper and lower. Like it or not with the amount of money most cops make they are no longer considered middle class they have moved up.
One set of Grandparents came here with all they could fit
into an old DeSoto sedan and some dreams.
Trying to get the hell out of Chicago with the one surviving
parent and siblings.
Here's hoping that the low info voters re-elect Rahm
and hold him hostage so that he gets caught in the
cascading debris and torn to weasel-burger as the
whole God-awful, shitty, bloody mess that is Chicago
goes sliding into the abyss...
F/U Rahm.
You had no genuine love for this city
or respect for the little neighborhood-y
people, places and institutions that made
this city go.
You came here only to rob, steal and destroy
by any and all means.
Appalling how so many people co-signed when
your vow to "stick it in the Cops ear" started circulating.
Nobody asked what a Chicago Policeman ever did to
you (if anything at all) to earn your hatred.
Other than being seen as "unfair recipients" of half of
the municipal budget.
Public Safety and all that it entails, is neither FREE nor
CHEAP!
Intentionally gutting Public Safety and redirecting the allocated
dollars to your friends for running your mayoral campaigns, is
tragically misguided financial and public safety policy.
Politically, it's a masterful coup.
But you have to be wired real funny
to actually celebrate that.
Not to mention you running interference
for Daley Inc. to keep your North Shore
and Gold Coast patrons out of the federal
crosshairs until the counter on the statute
of limitations times out on much of the
funny money shit they pulled to become
even more obscenely wealthy on the
Chicago taxpayer dime.
Taking it to The Police because they're
afraid of The Police being at the forefront
of scores being settled for what was done to
this city?
Perhaps that's why so much capital was vested in
running agit-prop to separate The Police from
public good will.
Worked like a fucking charm.
Chicago is ripe for the plundering.
It's like a horrid and macabre game show.
There is no lack of m/fers in the studio
audience gleefully putting their hands
together celebrating Fuckery.
Anonymous Taypayer (in the suburbs) said...
Hey- with all the shootings going on, it's not just middle-class moving out of Chicago.
People in the suburbs are taking second thoughts about coming downtown.
Nothing downtown is worth being caught in a cross-fire.
5/12/2016 01:21:00 AM
^THIS
I stopped going downtown 4 months ago. I went to 1 concert, and parked in Oak Park, took the blue line down, got the hell right out and spent my meal/drink money in Forest Park. Even the walk last week out of the Chicago Theater was sketchy. Homeless and pandhandlers everywhere.
Regarding residency requirements:
Think about this for a moment. The decline of cities like Detroit and Philadelphia came about after the abolition of residency requirements for municipal workers.
Those workers were the backbone of the tax base. They worked in the city and spent their money in the city. They paid into all of the local tax districts which in turn shored up their benefit funds, pension funds, etc.
I know that the pension funds are in trouble due to political mismanagement. But how in the world will the flight of the middle class government workers to the suburbs or rural areas help those funds?
Who will be left in these urban areas to pay into those funds? At this point in the development of those funds, they are basically pay-as-you-go funds. Where will our pension payments come from if the only ones left in the city are the poor and the subsidized? ? Seriously, who are we kidding here?
This city cannot and will not survive without the hard working, tax paying middle class as an integral part of it. And municipal government workers, with union wages and job security, are the most important component of that class.
So please, stop writing about getting rid of residency requirements for municipal workers unless you want to kiss your pensions away too. As always, E.P.
Notice that most of the Mag Mile stores and restaurants have twins outside of Cook County.
All Bicycle's should b license and rider's also, fuck them all!
Another alarmist story about how the city of Chicago will be the next Detroit. Bullshit. Open your eyes and look all around you. The city is booming. I am a copper and a realtor. I worked VRI and before roll call was talking with other coppers. All they could do is bitch, moan, complain and then bitch and moan again about how bad things were in Chicago.
Property values are back to it's highest levels and in the green zone values have gone about 30% higher. Suburbanites and new comers want to live in the city and not in Hoffman Estates! So far this year my wife is doing gang busters. She is a full time realtor.
I will give you one example. At Milwaukee and California they are building two new luxury apartment rentals. The rents will go from $1700 to $4000 per month. New luxury apartments are being built, condos and houses. Open your eyes and see the evidence all around you. Or ignore it and keep complaining.
Rahm gets it, but doesn't give a fuck. As long as there are the wealthy to tax the shit out of and the poor on the dole voting democrat, they are happy. Fuck this place and everyone in it. Can't wait to leave this shithole behind.
No worries.
Hipsters and illegal aliens will make up the shortfall.
5:20AM...
The problem is that property taxes in any decent suburb are still WAY higher then Chicago.
I paid the private school tuition when my kids were growing up, then it stopped.
Property taxes only go up, even in nice, leafy northern suburbs.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I cannot in good conscience send my kids to a Chicago Public School. I have to leave the city to send them to a public school in the suburbs that I hope will be safer. My family has been here for a century. It's killing me but this thread is about me.
5/12/2016 05:20:00 AM
You mean that you don't want your children to be in the shower with transgenders? You are a bigot, racist, and homophobe. Shame on you for not teaching your children tolerance and diversity. When your daughter is in the shower and a large man in a dress walks in and pulls his junk out, she should be accepting. He is the one who is suffering. It's probably your white privilege making you think you are better than having to live in our sanctuary city. When Hillary is president, all of the spectacular gains made will become law. Just remember, you are the problem, not the less than one percent of transgenders that America has to bend over backward for.
As long as Chicago public schools let transgender questioning students and staff pick the bathroom and showers of their choosing, all will be okay. The middle class will flock to this city to expose their children to our diversity. This degenerate ass wipe of a city is heading straight down the toilet courtesy of the communist democrats that you vote for.
Anonymous said...
Most of America has slipped into the lower class. Not just in this city. The middle class is a dying breed and it's not at all a problem that's specific to Chicago.
5/12/2016 02:17:00 AM
Agree. Many cities are dumps with high crime rates. Whole sections of rural America are supported by federal subsidies such as Social Security Disability. Just about 1/2 of the country is supported by the other half. No wonder Trump has so many followers because he claims he will bring jobs back and Bernie? Well he offers more free stuff which appeals to the young who just don't have a clue. When I tell people that although Chicago leads in actual numbers of violent crime, it is far from the most dangerous city in America. Chicago does not even make the top 20 most dangerous cities in Illinois and is not in the top 50 in America. That is a scary thought that your chance of getting murdered is much higher in just about every major city in America. Lets not even talk about the Caribbean or South America. People fleeing the city for good schools are going into a situation that is not much better. Less violence in most suburb schools but way more drug use.
Talk about feeling the pinch just wait until you all retire. Free insurance until you reach 65, then the add kicking starts, if you still have a family which many still do, with college age kids, expect to pay about $ 1500 00 even month for the city insurance with no more dental and vision. The city wants to do away with retirees health care and are trying g to force us all out.by
I have always heard the get out of town speech before it's to late from a lot of the old timers, starting when I came on the Job in the mid 70's. I always thought it was strange with their rants of how the value of our housing was falling and you had to get out before you lost everything, but when some of these guy's retired and they put their house up for sale they had the only homes that were worth anything. Everything else had decreased in value except for their personal homestead. The other guys always promoting the abolishment of the residency rules always seemed to be some suburban raised person who did everything they could to get on the job but now this place was not good enough for him or his family. I do think that you should live where ever you want to and make the best decisions for your family that you can. But I also have felt that anyone who was not willing to fight for his home and his community is the same person who will not be watching out for my back on the street when they are supposed to. These are the persons who seemed to be just out for themselves no matter what you were doing or talking about. I think If you want out then leave, be happy. But I am also able to see that there are plenty of good decent people living in the city. Some neighbor hoods are in decline but look around are you so jaded that you can't see the places that were a terrible place to live in the 60's & 70's that are now great neighborhoods and just keep getting better. All is not lost. I would rather stand with someone who is willing to fight for what is right and especially for their home rather than some of you blow hards on this blog. If and when you leave I think that there will be plenty of good neighbors to replace you. Have a nice life where ever you choose to go, which is more than you are willing to offer me.
Echo'ing the prior comment, but my kid is going to a selective HS and after that's done we're out of here, happily taking our business and our income with us. Used to be very proud of Chicago, not so much anymore.
I've said it before.......the lazy, leaching scumbags and the filthy rich are the only ones thriving here. Luxury residences are being built all over out pricing the working man's ability to own in a decent neighborhood. The alleged poor are driving better and newer cars than the working man and many times these scum are given a voucher to live in newer and bigger places than the working stiff. When will people figure this out? I've personally dealt with assholes who live in a new condo building with elevators, indoor parking and a balcony while driving a 50k SUV. These assholes will freely admit they have never worked a fucking day in their lives. The working man is the sucker, at least in this fucking city and county. Wake up working, taxpaying voters!! We need to end the giving away of entitlements to the scammers and undeserving. The ones receiving free handouts shouldn't be living and driving better without working than the ones working and providing, at least that's my opinion.
"Detroit II is a lot closer than anyone is noticing - as the middle class can't afford Chicago, they leave. As they leave, revenues fall. As revenues fall....you getting the picture yet Rahm?"
Of course he gets the picture. But as long as there are tax dollars to squander on pet projects that enrich himself & his connected cronies, who cares? As long as there is money to steel, he doesn't give a shit.
Once the carcass of Chicago is picked clean, he and his rich buddies will leave the city, and live off all the loot they've stashed in their off shore accounts all these years.
1 – 14 of 14
Anonymous Anonymous said...
How can they force us to live here? FOP won't step up so we need some outside attorneys to fight this.
5/12/2016 12:30:00 AM
YOU take the lead. And after YOU pay the retainer fee. Then the lawyer will tell YOU that:
1. you can't do it in court until you get the state law changed.
2. You need to get YOUR state rep and senator to propose it.
3. Get it out of committee.
4. Then out of rules committee.
5. Have both houses pass identical bills.
6. Get Bruce to sign it.
7. Then take the city to court.
8. Then the city produces the paperwork YOU signed stating it was "Terms of YOUR employment".
9. Even if YOU win there is a another court case then when they invoke "Home Rule".
So rookie just to let you know a lot of us tried this 20 years ago. The new court cases that have been won around the country do not apply to us because their laws were different.
But keep trying. Why don't YOU file suit and if you win I'll send you $100 bucks.
When you start bleeding someone to death ( the middle class), eventually self preservation kicks in and that someone gets the hell out of Dodge.
They surely aren't squeezing "the community".
Anonymous The Neanderthal said...
Not Feeling The Pinch --
Chelsea Clinton's husband Marc and his colleagues from Goldman Sachs shutter $25 million hedge fund after losing nearly ALL their investors' money (good thing he still has his $10 million apartment)
* Chelsea Clinton's husband Marc Mezvisnky started Eaglevale Partners in 2011, with two of his former Goldman Sachs coworkers
* Shortly after Mezvinsky started the company he set up the Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity to buy up Greek debt and bank stock
* The group collected $25 million from investors but has been forced to shut down the hedge fund after losing 90 percent of that money
* Eaglevale's flagship fund currently manages $330 million and is [still only] down 1 percent this year
* Mezvinsky, 38, and Chelsea, 36, live in an apartment located on New York City's Madison Square Park
* The residence, which is the depth of an entire city block, was purchased in 2013 by the couple for $10 million
http://tinyurl.com/za3emdj
Ah, these "financial products." The A-listers are doing quite nicely buying and selling debt -- as though it was a tangible bushel of corn or something.
It's not.
Will Mezvinsky and his crew be showing up hat-in-hand on the doorsteps of their victims, saying "Sorry for your loss" and "What can we do so that this doesn't happen again?" AAAhahaha.
5/12/2016 03:24:00 AM
When is Donald Trump going to supply his tax returns?
But wait more millions found rahm builds another bike park on marsh land will it sink?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-big-marsh-bike-park-met-0513-20160512-story.html
How can the city be broke with all this hidden money being spent?
Makes me worried about my pension···
Chicago had too many middle-class producers
so Rahm had to finally "right size" their numbers...
Get out!
Leave while you still can.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Who cares if all the middle class leave?
I am sure they can fund the pension plan with all the taxpaying people on EBT, and Section 8.
They pay lots of taxes don't they?
5/12/2016 02:11:00 AM
The only taxes that aforementioned group pays is liquor taxes...... and that's not going to help a whole hell of a lot as far as funding our pensions.
It's not just Chicago or Detroit. It is all across America. And the world.
NAFTA, globalisation, European Union, New World Order: the trillionaires, will crush millionaires. The working middle class will be gravel.
Literally, two (2) licensed professional engineers I know sold their home as at a loss for the tax advantage and moved their firm, jobs, wealth to Utah. They still do projects here but the money flows out of state etc... My good friend is waiting for his wife to finish teacher college degree and will move away with their two kids and his professional degree and wealth... My Wife's a Nurse, I'm an electrical engineer, We're not far behind them...
Leftists scream about the "increasing wealth gap" in this country as if a good number of people are getting rich while others get poor. The truth is that their own corrupt policies are forcing the majority of wage earners downward into poverty. They keep squeezing the middle class to fund all of their welfare state programs and entitlements so the gimmedats will keep turning out the vote for them.
The middle class -- what's left of it -- is finally realizing they've been conned by both Democrats and Republicans too long. Is the "Trump phenomenon" somehow escaping your grasp? Take a look at the number of working people leaving this state and city. They're seeking protection elsewhere.
Mezvinsky and friends? All Goldman Sachs alumni.
"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates..."
-- Matt Taibbi
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405
That Hope & Change is really working!
Chicago is on the flight path of the famed Malaysian concentric bird which flew in ever tightening circles until is disappeared up its own Asshole.... Like Detroit Camden Newark Baltimore Harrisburg
The country is stratifying into 2 layers: the have-nots and the got-it-alls.
As for police, fire and city employees holding up the tax base: What are you smoking??
The city workers' taxes do not support the city as it is just recycled money. What you need for a real solid economic foundation is taxes paid by real workers that produce real goods and services. The city collects taxes from them and uses tax money to pay the city workers. Taxes that city workers pay is just like a kickback and is not sustainable.
As for those neighborhoods that were shitty and are now nice: The problem is that a middle class workers, especially a city worker, can not afford them.
You may think it is great that there are $1700 to $4000 per month residences being built. Do you have the income to afford that? How many people do?
Better start looking for a refrigerator box and a subway vent.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Don't worry, twenty years from now your pension will be perfectly safe.
They will surely have fully funded the pension plans by then.
Just ask the Teamsters.
Or you could find a department that has a solid retirement plan (before you are too old).
5/12/2016 01:39:00 AM
It isn't our fault, I want the city to do good. But it isn't... So what am I going to do just wait around with my family to get shoot. The fools keep voting these goofs in.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I cannot in good conscience send my kids to a Chicago Public School. I have to leave the city to send them to a public school in the suburbs that I hope will be safer. My family has been here for a century. It's killing me but this thread is about me.
5/12/2016 05:20:00 AM
My great grand father, grand father, father, my son and I have lived in the same neighborhood from 1885. The downtown area can not save the city. Look at the land mass on the south side of scorched earth. The city will not survive without the neighborhoods, jobs and good people. The elected officials caused this with over regulation, and taxes. I won't to where the good respectful people are and a gun friendly stat. To all those who like being over taxed and over regulated than stay here and fend for yourself. Three years and I'm gone.......
1 – 14 of 14
Anonymous Anonymous said...
How can they force us to live here? FOP won't step up so we need some outside attorneys to fight this.
CCSPD tried to keep P/Os who lived outside the County from taking their cars home and that worked for about a week. Executive Officers living out of the County scoffed at that idea. Probably pissed off Dart but nobody gave a shit... Then the rule was changed if you had a Department issued rifle...you were now allowed to take the car home, out of the County so the rifle could be secured. Probably pissed Dart off again!
The Union got matters straightened out and things went back to normal. Guys could take their cars home including out of State like Indiana or Wisconsin. Again, probably pissed Dart off.
Gotta admit pissing that jag off is probably as much fun as pissing off little Rahmbo. Another jagoff.
Latest think Dart did was revoke the Correctional Officer to Police Officer training process revoked. Was called "CO to P/O".
That clusterfuck idea never materialized either so the bailiffs and jail guards can't get IROCC Certification. Boo fuckin' hoo! That's what they get for claiming to be the Police when in fact they were not.
Why anyone takes that shit Jail or Courts job makes no sense to me.
Dart has to be the worst, narcissistict Sheriff in the history of the COOK COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE!
>>>
When is Donald Trump going to supply his tax returns?
5/12/2016 01:42:00 PM
>>>Legit answer>>>When the I.R.S. is through auditing them.
Now when will the Wiki-Leakers expose how the Saudis and other Arab oil interests funnel $$MILLION$$ through Canadian charity fronts and into the Clinton's stash.
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