Key Findings

This year’s annual Report on Illinois Poverty finds that the post-recession period has seen no gains for struggling Illinois families.

• Poverty is worse in Illinois today than during the recession, and grew from pre- to post-recession by 16 percent.
• At least 1 in 10 people live in poverty in 85 of Illinois’ 102 counties.
• Nearly 1 in 3 Illinoisans are now considered poor or low-income.

These realities and associated hardships play out in different ways:

Employment

• Unemployment in Illinois skyrocketed 82.3 percent during the recession, and since then unemployment has held steady around 10 percent.
• The average length of time Illinois workers are unemployed has nearly doubled since 2007, with unemployed workers spending an average of nearly 37 weeks unemployed in 2010.
• Illinois must add 528,844 new jobs to fill its job gap (number of jobs lost during the recession and the number of jobs needed for new entrants to the workforce).

Income

• Median household income in Illinois has steadily declined; it is currently $52,972, down 3.4 percent from the recession and 6.9 percent from before the recession.
• For families at the bottom of the income spectrum, having limited resources results in families having to balance their budgets through short term trade-offs with long-term consequences such as deferring needed medical care or dipping into retirement savings.

Housing and Homelessness

• Housing costs have long eaten up large portions of family budgets and now families have even less income to devote to housing.
• The number of people, 241,093, living doubled up increased by 15 percent from 2008 to 2009.
• 1 out of every 4 households in Illinois is now considered to be severely rent burdened with housing costs comprising more than half their income.

Assets and Debt

• Mounting debt is increasing the economic vulnerability of families across Illinois for many years to come.
  • In 2011 the average debt of Illinoisans increased 37 percent over 2003 to $13,416.
  • The average amount of student loan debt among graduating seniors from 4-year Illinois colleges is $23,885.
• Low credit scores are also on the rise, which can greatly limit prime borrowing opportunities for car loans, credit cards, and home loans: since 2007 the rate of Illinois consumers with credit scores below 620 has increased 22 percent.

Government assistance was critical to keeping people out of poverty in the recession.

Without it, nearly twice as many people nationally would have experienced poverty in 2010. Unfortunately, not all of Illinois’ safety net assistance programs responded quickly and effectively to growing hardship.

Responsive Programs

• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) continues to respond to growing need. The number of households receiving assistance has steadily grown as incomes have declined, growing 64 percent from before the recession to the post-recession period. 874,109 households now receive assistance.
• The Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable federal income tax credit, has steadily reached more households in Illinois. Receipt has grown almost 10 percent from pre- to post-recession. Over one million Illinois tax filers now receive the EITC.

Inconsistent Programs

• The response of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which provides cash assistance to very low-income families with children, was undetectable during the recession. There was essentially no increase in the caseload from the year before the recession to the recession period. Since the recession ended, however, the caseload has grown 64 percent to 46,694 families.
• The Unemployment Insurance program was by far the most responsive during the recession. Claims grew over 75 percent. Since then, however, while unemployment has stayed at the same level, the number of recipients has plummeted almost 30 percent.