Illinois Shows How Today’s Young Immigrant Families Will Support Tomorrow’s Senior Citizens
By Bobbi Bowman
Part of the mantra of the anti–immigrant movement these days is that immigrants don’t pay taxes. Well, most of them do. If current trends hold up, more and more white Americans will find this out the easy way because this burgeoning and disproportionately non–white population will pay its own health, transportation and Social Security bills.
Let’s go to the Land of Lincoln.
Illinois has grown by about 54,000 people a year since 1980, and Hispanics account for 89 percent of that growth. Right there in the heartland of America, there probably will be in our lifetime a state where the majority of its people will be people of color. To view the census data click here and here.
Back in 1980, some 78 percent of the people in Illinois were white and not Hispanic. Today that figure is down to 65 percent, and among tots five years or younger, its 53 percent – a tad more than half.
Illinois is a prime example of three major population trends that are literally changing the face of America. It is a gateway state for immigrants. Its young are leaving, and the remaining white population is aging. And hence it will be the taxes of young black, Mexican and Asian workers–many of them immigrants and children of immigrants–that will take care of Illinois’ mostly white senior citizens.
This transformation is one of the major stories that reporters and editors need to be explaining to readers–a little old–fashioned explanatory journalism, thank you. And we need to be telling readers how crucial it will be to better educate the increasing number of minority kids so everybody’s pocketbooks and Social Security checks will be a little fuller.
“The sea changes that are occurring are real, they are upon us now, and as journalists, we barely see them, much less understand them,” said Linda Cunningham, executive editor of the Register Star in Rockford, Ill. “To ignore the reality of our new world is to fail at our mission.”
What created these sea changes?
Let’s start with immigration. Illinois is the fifth–largest state in population in the United States. With nearly 14 percent of America’s immigrants–that’s one of every seven–Illinois has the nation’s 10th–largest immigrant population. Click here for the census data.
Illinois has been a magnet for immigrants for most of its history. Back when immigration was more of a European–based phenomenon, at the turn of the 20th century, it was a gateway to the Midwest for Polish, Czech, Ukrainians, and Lithuanian immigrants.
Mexicans started coming to Illinois at about the same time as the European immigrants. Civil war raged in Mexico from 1910 to 1920 , leading thousands of Mexicans to flee their homes for Los Angeles and California and Chicago and Illinois.
Illinois’ current governor, Rod Blagojevich, is the son of Serbian immigrants. U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who represents Chicago’ North Side, is the son of an Israeli immigrant, according to The Almanac of American Politics.
Immigrants are concentrated in the six counties that ring Chicago. This is a suburban story.
“The population is changing radically, and that’ important first, of course, because we’ve got to reflect that population in the pages of our newspaper and on the pages of our Web site. If your newspaper doesn’t show you people who look like you, then it won’t really be your newspaper. Can’t be,“ said John Lampinen, executive editor of the Daily Herald in suburban Arlington Heights, just outside Chicago.
Now the other part of the equation: White folks are aging. Eighty percent of those 65 and older in Illinois are white. What are the implications of an elderly population that is 80 percent white and a young population that is 48 percent brown and growing?
It is no surprise that minorities constitute nearly 70 percent of Cook County public schools, home county to Chicago and its closest suburbs.
But look at minority enrollments in some of the suburban counties ringing Chicago: Kane County, nearly 46 percent. Lake County, 43 percent. Kendall County, 36 percent, Minority children are now 44 percent of the state's public school enrollment. (Private schools enroll 15 percent of the state's students.) For data click here.
Schoolchildren of today are the workers of tomorrow. That means that black Americans, Asian Americans and Mexican Americans will increasingly replace white Americans in the workforce.
The more educated you are the more money you make. The more money you make, the more taxes you pay. The higher the income of workers, the wealthier the jurisdiction and the more services. In addition, white–collar businesses locate in areas with highly educated populations. The Illinois State Board of High education has found that college graduates earn 50 percent more than high school graduates in a lifetime. That’s more than a half million dollars in additional income.
That means that in the future, aging white folks in Illinois will increasingly depend on their school districts’ ability to educate minority youngsters.
Since education determines income, let’s look at education levels by race for those 25 and older in Illinois. These adult education levels are a leading indicator of the education levels of the next generation. For data click here.
- Non–Hispanic whites: More than 90 percent have finished high school
in Illinois and a third have a college degree.
- Blacks: More than 80 percent of have a high school diploma but
only about 20 percent have a college degree.
- Asians: More than 90 percent are high school graduates and a
whopping 71 percent have a college degree.
- Latinos: Just under 60 percent have finished high school and
slightly more than 10 percent have a college degree.
- The Land of Lincoln might do well to make itself a better Land of
Education, for the sake of all of its people.
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