Current wage equity issues exist in Illinois, especially among women, Black, and Hispanic workers. Policymakers must address gender/racial wage gap issues to enhance the state’s overall social equity and inclusiveness. To help policymakers achieve this goal, this Project for Middle Class Renewal (PMCR) report based on 2018-2022 data from the American Community Survey (ACS) reveals […]
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 […]
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 […]
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which passed in early 2021, provided critical immediate relief to millions of Americans who have experienced economic hardship due to the economic fallout of the COVID-10 global pandemic. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has failed to act upon any broader economic and policy changes outlined in President Biden’s Build Back […]
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 […]
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 […]