With a gross domestic product of more than $15 trillion, the United States has the largest national economy in the world. In this time of financial turmoil, political deadlock, economic strain and ever-increasing global competition, America today faces an unparalleled challenge to its economic strength and stability.

To meet this challenge, the U.S. needs to build a workforce that can compete in the 21st century and where all of its members can contribute their talents and skills. Yet, this is something that we are struggling to do, in large part because tens of millions of Americans live in poverty. In 2011, the official poverty rate was 15.0 percent, with 46.2 million people in poverty, many of whom live in areas of concentrated poverty. The same rate in 2011 for children under age 18 was 21.9 percent, more than one-fifth of tomorrow’s workforce.

Children living in poverty do not have the same opportunities as children raised in wealthier households. Inequality disadvantages them in every aspect of their lives: they are less healthy, less educated, and more likely to enter prison than their more affluent peers.Inequality of this magnitude has created an economic crisis. With fewer children finishing Below is a summary of our key investment areas and programs.

Chicago’s West Side communities (defined by Bethel as Austin, East/West Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Humboldt Park) are among the most disadvantaged in the City. In fact, the City’s Hardship Index ranking places these communities at an average ranking of 11th out of 77 community areas in terms of degree of hardship experienced by residents. The median hardship index rating for these community areas is 85 out of a possible 100. Higher index scores are indicative of higher degrees of hardship .

Currently, 33% of Illinois residents live in or near poverty and 22% of Illinois children live in poverty. The poverty rate for all of Cook County is 33.9% with an additional 22% of Cook County residents qualifying as low income. Taken together, over 55%of Cook County residents (1.5 million people) live at or near poverty. The majority of Chicago’s West Side neighborhoods have poverty rates that exceed 34.9%, with highest concentrations in East and West Garfield Park and North Lawndale. Poverty rates on the West Side of Chicago range from 27.2% (Austin) to 43.7% (East Garfield Park), encompassing some 77,000 residents. Extreme poverty rates on the West Side of Chicago range from 12% (Austin) to 24.3% (East Garfield Park), encompassing some 38,574 residents.

Transforming the West Side communities from communities of concentrated poverty, high rates of unemployment and low levels of educational achievement to look something more similar to Chicago overall will take substantial, focused investment in getting West Side residents employed in skilled jobs. Doing this will also require substantial improvement in the educational attainment of West Side residents.

The extraordinary wealth gap between Chicago overall and the West Side in particular is related to a number of factors:

Making transformation happen will take a monumental effort. Bethel calculates that the following levels in Jobs, Training and Economic Growth will need to be achieved:

The initial opportunity for improvement rests in those who are not yet employed but will be in the near future and in those who are not employed currently, but could be. Initial efforts must focus on newly employing 27,000 more individuals in skilled jobs. For positive transformation to occur, residents of the West Side need more and better paying jobs.

This phase involves moving the community from working poor/low income to working class. Even with these extraordinary efforts, a wealth gap will remain between Chicago as a whole and the West Side.

Combined, employing the unemployed and better jobs for incumbent workers generates $1.2 billion in new annual wage income for the West Side. While the rate of poverty will be similar to that of Chicago overall, the median wage income level will still be about $16,000 less on the West Side than for the City as a whole.

If we do not transform the West Side, over the next ten years we will expend over $29.1 billion to keep the West Side poor and large numbers of residents locked up. Alternatively, over the next ten years we can make an effort to move the West Side from a community of concentrated poverty to a working class community, in part by reclaiming some of the money and many of the lives that we are now wasting.

PAYING FOR THE TRANSFORMATION

the total cost of transforming the West Side over ten years is $3.4 billion. This is only 12% of the cost of not transforming the West Side and can be gleaned from cost savings and new tax revenues from wage income with no new investment necessary. 

The good news is that over a 10-year period, the transformation of the West Side can more than pay for itself, improving the community, improving the city, and generating new revenue to support infrastructure and other City projects and services.

the total cost of transforming the West Side over ten years is $3.4 billion. This is only 12% of the cost of not transforming the West Side and can be gleaned from cost savings and new tax revenues from wage income with no new investment necessary.

Even if we assume that the transformation costs incur a 30% scale-up cost and run 20% ahead of projections, the total cost of West Side transformation comes in at $5.1 billion, less than half of the projected new revenue and cost savings.