EXAMINING ILLINOIS WAGE GAPS 2018-2022 | Gender and Race Differences Matter

Cover of the wage gap report.

Current wage equity issues exist in Illinois, especially among women, Black, andHispanic workers. Policymakers must address gender/racial wage gap issues to enhance thestate’s overall social equity and inclusiveness. To help policymakers achieve this goal, this Projectfor Middle Class Renewal (PMCR) report based on 2018-2022 data from the American CommunitySurvey (ACS) reveals several key findings about … Read more

Families’ Experiences with the Child Tax Credit | Advancing Tax Equity through Administration Reforms and Community Partnerships

This report draws on the U.S. Census Household Pulse survey to illustrate important diversity in reported CTC-receipt by race, gender, income, family structure, and marital status among households who would be potentially eligible for CTC. We also summarize findings from in-depth interviews and focus groups with parents/caregivers, outreach workers, community organization stakeholders, and tax preparers … Read more

Toward a Theory of Super-Exploitation: The Subproletariat, Harold “Hal” Baron, and the Crisis of the Political Economy of Black Labor

This article argues that the African American working class can be conceptualized as a subproletariat: a subsection of the working class generally restricted to unstable, unskilled, low-wage, non-union, and “dirty” labor. The restructuring of capital during various periods in the U.S. history always strategically positioned the vast majority of Black people in subproletarian labor. Under … Read more

Implementing a Fair Workweek Law in Illinois | Protecting Frontline Workers from Unpredictable Schedules

Fair workweek laws, also called predictive scheduling laws, have been implemented in Oregon and seven municipalities—including the City of Chicago—to protect workers from unstable scheduling practices. Implemented in June 2020, Chicago’s Fair Workweek Ordinance covers workers at large employers in seven essential and face-to-face industries: building services, health care, hotels, manufacturing, restaurants, retail trade, and … Read more

POLICIES TO REDUCE AFRICAN-AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT

The City of Chicago is experiencing extremely high rates of African-American unemployment compared to the rest of the nation. This report, conducted by researchers at the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, seeks to understand the causes of high African-American unemployment in Chicago … Read more