Economic Development Grades and Recommendations

Economic Development Grades

2007 Grade	2007 Grade Prediction for the Future	2010 Grade
C+	C	D

Chicago’s economic reality has been dismal at best over the past few years. And while city residents of every ilk have been grossly impacted by the current crisis, still some communities have been far more severely impacted while receiving the least amount of assistance. Communities became momentarily hopeful by some potential opportunities that were motivated by Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics, yet hopes were quickly dashed once concerns for fiscal accountability and transparency for the bid budget and spending were voiced by City Council members, and certainly hopes were laid to rest once Chicago lost the bid. TIF dollars have been primarily used as incentives for companies to create employment opportunities for Chicago residents. However, these employment opportunities have failed to reach those communities most severely ravaged by unemployment. Furthermore, current measures have failed to insure that companies that have received TIF incentives continue to promote and preserve the number of jobs they agreed to under TIF stipulations.

Recommendations

1. Support TIF-living wage legislation, which mandates that any large corporate entity that takes $250,000 in public subsides, and/or their tenants, must pay their workers a minimum of $11.03
2. Support low-wage retail workers, by ensuring that big box retail companies pay their workers a living wage.
3. Invest substantially more in job training and the creation of transitional job program supports for disadvantaged communities, including the formerly incarcerated, homeless communities, uneducated youth, and non-English speakers.
4. Ensure access to green jobs for people with the most barriers to employment by creating training opportunities with significant services attached to them and opportunities for subsidized employment.
5. Adopt a Street Vendor Ordinance, following models from other cities, that would allow street vendors in the city to succeed and that would protect them from harassment on the part of police officers and city inspectors.
6. Adopt the ordinance to require detailed analysis and evaluation of any lease or outsourcing contract at least 30 days prior to voting by the City Council along with release of all evaluations and contracts.
7. Support proposals to use TIF funds to fund more city programs and city jobs. TIF Funds should also be used to fund summer youth employment programs using public works jobs in addition to private sector employment.