Progress Illinois

Nine years ago, Chicagoan Mark Emerson left his job with a large company that offered group health coverage to pursue the American dream and start his own business. He did not know that this would begin an ordeal in which he was "charged back into the stone age” as a customer of the private health insurance market. Mark and his wife now pay more in health care costs than they do on their mortgage payments and real estate taxes. Despite being two healthy people, their insurance costs continue to climb. Though he has reached the point where he can no longer afford his premiums, Mark is unwilling to drop coverage and face the potential nightmare of going without insurance. He feels stuck, and help is nowhere to be found.

Mark is an American icon—a middle class entrepreneur. But he is just one of many middle class folks in cities across the country who struggle with similar situations. Escalating health care costs. The foreclosure crisis. The rising price of energy. Food prices and urban food deserts. Our perceived freedom as ordinary people to decide who to be, what to do, and how to live has increasingly drifted out of our control. We have to ask whether we are making progress as a country in improving our quality of life.

And, for that matter, what defines progress?

A report issued this month by the Columbia University Press and Social Science Research Council, titled “The Measure of America: American Human Development Report,” gives a fresh perspective on the concept of progress. It is the first and only report to combine the three issues Americans care about most -- health, education, and income -- in one measure. The report is based on the notion that whether someone makes a decent wage and has access to quality health care and schools determines their ability to sustain a tolerable life. Although the UN has used the so-called Human Development Index (HDI) to evaluate other countries, this is the first time the United States has been evaluated in this way.

This new measurement helps shed light on current urban dilemmas, including the uneven progress among racial and ethnic groups. For example, Chicago’s 4th Congressional District, primarily comprised of Latino communities, ranks lower than the national HDI average in all three areas, but particularly in education and income. Across the United States, about 40 percent of Latinos age 25 and up do not have a high school diploma, which corresponds to the rate of Americans as a whole in the mid-1970s. The report thus tells us that Latinos are about 30 years behind the nation’s progress in educational attainment.

Another example comes from the Chicagoland’s 2nd Congressional District, which is heavily African American, with mixed economic neighborhoods and suburbs. Median income in the district is somewhat above the national median and somewhat below the Illinois median. But the report reveals a looming problem. Only 21.2 percent of the district's residents have a bachelors degree and seven percent possess a graduate degree, compared to national averages of 29.2 percent and 10.9 percent, respectively. For these communities to compete in the new economy, attaining higher education must be made a priority.

Future reports will measure whether we're moving in the right direction. Each of the three main areas of focus include several sub-categories, such as an individual’s ability to attend a college of choice, access a lawyer in time of need, build assets, find affordable housing, and receive quality health care. Some localities do well on many of these measures, but everywhere there are shortfalls and inequalities that call out for solutions. Fortunately, the American Human Development Report is not just a catalog of problems; it offers examples of what is working in the U.S. and other countries, and prescribes the necessary changes.

The report’s collection of factors provides a pragmatic reality check on how we are faring in America. This is not another poverty index. It applies to everyone, including people like Mark who are unquestionably middle class. It is an excellent way not only to highlight our most pressing problems, but to define what it means to make progress and identify the solutions that we should demand of our leaders.

John Bouman is the president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, a Chicago-based law and policy center that champions economic opportunity for low-income people.

Previous columns:

A Case Study In Preserving The Status Quo, June 27, 2008