Update:
A reader found this information:
By: Diane Benjamin
Just Bloomington, not including Normal.
Excerpt:
Bloomington ranked 294th among cities in Illinois by annual earnings per resident, according to data obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau in August.
The median income of Bloomington residents was an inflation-adjusted $33,702 per year. Bloomington had 31,652 households in 2017, with a population of 78,426.
This year’s budget for Bloomington plans to spend $228,000,000 PDF page 13 https://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=22149 – $7,200 per household.
Tari’s first budget in 2014 was $167,503,453. https://blnnews.com/2016/10/24/bloomingtons-taxing-spending-history/
More than $60,000,000 less. Quality of Life!
Another story:
Illinois Wesleyan University is the 5th most expensive school in Illinois for in-state tuition.
ISU is number 60th, one place more expensive than University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Concerning!
To taxpayers! Is it to those who rule?
If $33G was the median income, and I assume this is gross not net income, many people are living from paycheck to paycheck. Inflation is a gorilla in the room. Many times I have looked at something and thought- I’m not going to pay that much for this-. Inflation has decimated the ability to use a savings account. Now I save money just to buy necessary things, no longer to set a buck or two aside for a rainy day. Seldom do I buy anything that is not on sale. My clothes come from the thrift shops. Most of my groceries come from ALDI’s.
Last week on my way out town, I stopped at McDonalds and picked up two burger, no fries, no drink. It was $9.50! I should have gone to the grocery store. Life is a matter of adaptation but the price of happiness will always remain the same. Pacem in terra.
The Bloomington economy is a structural disaster. Bigger government, higher taxes, shrinking industry, and declining income among its citizenry. Wonder how they’ll make up the difference between increasing government spending and fewer taxpayers and less taxpayer money. I’m not a betting man, but I’d say higher taxes and fees. You see, “quality of life” in Bloomington is what the government thinks it should be, not what each of us makes of it with your own time, money, and talents. IWU is worthy of a story on its own, Diane. The elites in the ivory tower were trying to downplay the latest enrollment figures in the Slantagraph. The incoming freshman class is down about 17.5% from 540 last year to 446 this year. That, of course, will carry over for the next four years. Nothing to see here.
I saw that. Everything is fine! According to them.
Of course, it is. Let’s ask a business owner what would happen if the number of customer contracts they signed went down 17.5% year-over-year. Business as usual? I think not. By the way, this is not a dig at IWU (and its most infamous professor), smaller private liberal arts colleges that depend heavily on tuition are struggling nationwide. A garden variety employer is unlikely to value an IWU degree over an ISU degree. More importantly, college is no longer worth it for most.
…but I’ll bet they rank near Number 1 for “Antifa Affiliation By Elected Officials” (formal or informal). It’s at least 1/3 of the Council. Coming to your doorstep within the next 5 years–maybe only 2, if voters return a thug like Eric Holder as US Attorney General.
Median income will continue to decline as those who can afford to move, do.
Also, the real elephant in the room is ever-increasing taxes. More cash out of taxpayers pockets to our local government to waste on downtown and bike lanes, and less to the wage earner for living expenses. It’s obvious government doesn’t care.
Agreed. Those with means and money have left or will leave. Bloomington is on the fast track to becoming Detroit. A one-industry/company town with an employer that is less committed and less interested in the community by the hour. When Rome was collapsing, they were building roads to nowhere. Bloomington is collapsing and they’re building bike lanes for no one.
The Normal poverty numbers are likely skewed because students are probably included since all college towns claim them as permanent residences. That said, this is just another benchmark illustrating that these communities are on the way down and not up. When you willing recruit a unskilled labor force to your town, this is one result. People that refuse to believe that all elections have consequences are ruining more than their own lives.
Diane,
There are already hundreds of upscale houses in the Bloomington/Normal area that are sitting empty. Doesn’t the area need hundreds of upscale incomes to match the upscale houses, condos, and apartments being built? I thought State Farm was working day and night to transfer high paying jobs to their hubs in Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix – which is one reason why the old State Farm building is available in the first place.
https://urbanep.com/page/The-Pantgagraph-The-details-on-Bloomington-Lofts-planned-for-downtown-building
It doesn’t make sense.
I agree! The value of those empty expensive houses have vastly decreased too!