-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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The bigger news is the Texas undercount was so low that it cost them a congressional seat that would have come at the expense of New York.
And perhaps Florida: https://rollcall.com/2022/05/19/census-misses-may-have-cost-florida-and-texas-in-redistricting/
The dishonest claims being made by Pritzker and others about these new numbers are ridiculous. We will write up a full article on this. The political establishment is lying as usual.
If the Census Bureau can’t do the job, it’s time to go to Plan B.
Count only those who file income taxes and/or own land/property/businesses, and base all federal decisions on those numbers.
Lion’s choice, we’ve already done that! And the numbers show consistent decline. See our earlier column here, and new numbers from the IRS should be out soon: https://wirepoints.org/new-irs-migration-data-illinois-third-biggest-loser-of-people-biggest-loser-of-incomes-to-other-states-in-2019-wirepoints/
So a small, after-the-fact sample “survey” disproves the mega-data from millions of census forms? Doesn’t add up. The survey’s conclusion — that census data was incomplete — is something the census bureaucrats pushed out of their asshole — in order to justify a bigger budget and payroll.
I would like to believe that the population of Illinois actually grew as now reflected in the 2020 census. This information needs to be reconciled to all the contradictory information we’ve seen. The lagging real estate prices for one, and the data from moving companies and the IRS. Expect to see this latest news in JB campaign ads momentarily.
The Census Bureau basically admitted to undercounting us for 10 years. That means we can’t trust any of their yearly counts in between the last 2 big census counts. 250,000 residents didn’t magically appear in 2019 when JB took office. Since the Census count is as of April 2020, that means there is an 85% probability that any population growth happened under either Quinn and Rauner. So JB has nothing to really celebrate here. Just like JB backed into the 5% state income tax rate that saved the state, he now is taking credit for 100% of population growth when… Read more »
Right as usual, nixit. Regarding the annual Census Bureau estimates that had showed IL losing population, keep in mind that they only estimate change and they worked off the 2010 census as the base. Their estimate of change may have been right, but the base was wrong — or at least different in that things were counted differently in 2010 than they were in 2020. Specifically, IL had a very intense outreach effort to get the count up in 2020 that it did not have in 2010.
Wait, are you telling me Governor Rauner was able to get more people to move into Illinois than leave? Wow, that’s pretty amazing! Thank you, Bruce! It took a couple years after you were gone to get the proof, but here it is in black and white. Take a bow!
How many $millions$ did Illinois spend census trackers? And now jb’s claiming it’s all wrong?
Was there any specific reason that the Census Bureau believes there was an undercount? Based on survey data? What does that mean? This article made little sense to me. Did I miss something?
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/pes-2020-undercount-overcount-by-state.html
You will be even more confused if you read the actual document from the Census Bureau: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/pes-2020-undercount-overcount-by-state.html. Shamefully obtuse and vague.
What makes even less sense is back in November i remember reading Illinois had an above average census participation rate of 71% vrs national average of 67%. So how can Illinois have an undercount with higher than average participation rate? You can read this dhs pdf https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=129963