Want a Better Life in Illinois? - Drive 33 miles.

Update: The Measure of America Web Page is under construction, possibly to get the interactive map up and running. Please continue to check the page to get more information on the American Human Development Project.

[Written by Patrick Stonehouse]

On Wednesday, July 16th, The Measure of America: American Human Development Project (AHDP) released the first ever American Human Development Report, a national, state-by-state, and congressional district-by-congressional district assessment of human development in the United States. Human development is defined in this report as “the process of enlarging people’s freedoms and opportunities and improving their well-being” based on assessments of people’s health, education, and income.

This report reveals massive disparities in our country. The report states that the extreme and growing disparities between geographic, racial and economic groups has a negative effect on the society as a whole, not just those who find themselves at the bottom. These negative effects can manifest in decreased cohesion and stability in neighborhoods, a stunting of children’s sense of potential, and can effect the nations productivity and economic productivity.

As evidence of the extreme disparities of human development, let’s take a look at Illinois. Illinois comes in at #14 in the national rankings, tied with Vermont. Life expectancy at birth is 78.1 years, median average earnings is $29,598, and 85.7% of Illinoisans have at least a high school diploma.

So, we come in at #14. Which is better than being the 18th most distressed economy in the nation we earned back in June.

But since we are talking about disparity lets look at the disparity between two congressional districts in Illinois. The district in Illinois with the highest ranking (coming in at 25th) is the 13th District, which includes Naperville and Bolingbrook. The district in Illinois with the lowest ranking is the 4th District, which includes Cicero and much of the predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Chicago. The 4th district came in 403rd out of 436 congressional districts in the country. That is an extremely disturbing range.

Typically when we think of disparity in Illinois, we think of the difference between urban and rural, Northern Illinois and Southern Illinois, Chicago and everywhere else. But these two districts are separated by only 33 miles.

Here are some of the details:

- 4th District: Life Expectancy: 77.8; At Least a High School Diploma: 60%; Median Average Income: $21,334; Human Development Index: 3.65

- 13th District: Life Expectancy: 79.9; At Least a High School Diploma: 93.5%; Median Average Income: $39,755; Human Development Index: 6.92

(To see the rest of the scores and those of other Congressional Districts, click here)

While these two districts represent the most dramatic gap of well-being, they are far from only districts of concern. Here is the full list of Congressional Districts of Illinois with their rankings to show the range of well-being in Illinois.

1st District (Oak Forest) ranked 208th.
2nd District (Homewood) ranked 162nd.
3rd District (Bridgeview) ranked 179th.
4th District (Cicero) ranked 403rd
5th District (River Grove) ranked 109th.
6th District (Wheaton) ranked 56th.
7th District (Oak Park) ranked 87th.
8th District (McHenry) ranked 66th.
9th District (Skokie) ranked 48th.
10th District (Arlington Heights) ranked 26th.
11th District (Joliet) ranked 197th.
12th District (Carbondale) ranked 321st.
13th District (Naperville) ranked 25th.
14th District (Aurora) ranked 131st.
15th District (Champaign) ranked 246th.
16th District (Rockford) ranked 178th.
17th District (Galesburg) ranked 345th.
18th District (Peoria) ranked 226th.
19th District (Mount Vernon) ranked 257th.

For the nation, AHDP released an 8-point Human Development Agenda for ways to improve:

1) Promote prevention in public health efforts
2) Make health care affordable for all Americans
3) Modernize K-12 education
4) Invest in at-risk kids, the earlier the better
5) Strengthen and support families through public and private sector efforts that allow working families to better balance their work and family responsibilities
6) Boost incomes and aid asset-building
7) Launch a Marshall Plan for the Gulf (rebuild states and communities still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).
8) Take responsibility for the most vulnerable

These recommendations should be looked at with the needs of Illinois in mind. Do those eight recommendations meet our needs? Alter the recommendation “Launch a Marshall Plan for the Gulf” to “Launch a Marshall Plan for those counties devastated by recent flooding” and it is easy to apply the recommendations to Illinois. Whether you agree with the recommendations or not, whether the recommendations are feasible or not, the disparity of well-being is stark and something needs to be done.

To find out your personal human development score, check out the Well-O-Meter on the Measure of America page. Knowing my score won’t change anything but it does give some perspective in two ways. First, the information the Well-O-Meter needs in order to compute your score gives perspective on aspects of your life and lifestyle that impact your well-being, some within your control and some not. None of these things should be surprising, but it is interesting to see how it is computed into a well-being score. Second, comparing to state and district scores. This doesn’t have to be any kind of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of thing. Rather it can be a way of seeing how each of us fit into the mosaic of Illinois well-being.


Articles from around the nation and the world on the Measure of America:

Oxfam America: First "American Human Development Report" Introduces New Measurement of American's Well-being

San Jose Mercury News: San Joaquin Valley ranks last in poverty study

Houston Chronicle : Stiffed- Americans pay the most in the world for health care — but we get a rotten deal

The Independent: American inequality highlighted by 30-year gap in life expectancy

Talk Radio News Service: Report: Most American’s doing better than fifty years ago