Introduction to Sociology

Poverty and Race in Chicago

One way to examine structural failings is to examine Chicago, a city with high unemployment and murder rates that have made national headlines for several years. In the 2017 Great Cities Institute report, the institute estimated that 40 percent of Black 20 to 24-year-olds in Chicago are out of work and out of school, compared with 7 percent of their white counterparts in the same city. The unemployment rate for blacks in Chicago was 16.2 percent in 2018, compared with under 5% for whites. Thirty-four percent of African Americans in Chicago are living in relative poverty as compared to 24 percent for Blacks nationally (which is already disproportionate since Blacks make up 12 percent of the U.S. population)^[3].
Few jobs are located close to the most segregated and the most violent neighborhoods in South Chicago, and some researchers credit the tremendous increase in violence to a lack of economic opportunities. According to the University of Chicago Crime Lab, murders in Chicago increased by 58 percent between 2015 and 2016. High poverty areas, especially historically segregated areas, also often have low performing schools. In 2013, 50 Chicago public schools were closed, which affected 12,000 students, nearly 88 percent of whom were Black. In a 2018 summary report, students who were forced to transfer schools experienced more suspensions and absences across the board, and were subject to both short and long-term negative learning effects ^[4]. Better-educated people are less likely to be poor, but how do we begin to improve public schools in the poorest neighborhoods when much of their funding is determined by property taxes? We will continue to examine poverty as it relates to race, ethnicity, gender, and education in subsequent modules.
A recent survey by the U.S. Federal Reserve found that 47 percent of Americans would have a difficult time raising $400 cash in an emergency^[5] This supports recent census data, which shows that half the population qualifies as poor or low income. Poverty rates are persistently higher in rural and inner-city parts of the country as compared to suburban areas. Children, the disabled, the elderly, and minority populations are particularly vulnerable to poverty.
Most people tend to think about poverty as “cyclical” or generational poverty, but in a recent study conducted by the Center for Poverty Research at the University of California, Davis, the average “spell of poverty” lasted 2.8 years, and although most people become poor due to less money being earned by a head of household, 25 percent entered into poverty as the result of a breadwinner’s death or through divorce^[6]. The effects of poverty on children are many, including an increased likelihood of reduced life chances.