Days after print publication, Bill Knight’s syndicated newspaper column, which moves twice a week, will appear here. The most recent will appear at the top. (Columns before Sep. 11, 2017, are archived at http://billknightcolumn.blogspot.com/).

Thursday, April 3, 2025

The Other Migration

In the 1980s, cynics and other smart-alecks blasted Peoria’s economic prospects by quipping, “Will the last one to leave Peoria turn out the lights?”

Such a bumper-sticker attitude about Illinois is too common now, as too many media keep repeating the judgments that many people are fleeing the Land of Lincoln.

It’s a wonder there aren’t billboards asking 21st century residents to leave their keys behind when they abandon the rests of us.

It’s confusing because sources often are ideological or commercial interests with stakes in complaining in general or moving in particular. Also, the assertion can be wrong or incomplete according to reviews by the U.S. Census Bureau and academic studies such as a recent report from the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute (ILEPI). Plus, such data is frequently updated to be current and reliable

It's too typical especially for mid- and small-market newsrooms to run with a summary repeating the told, tired refrain. Media stories chronically stress a “mass migration” angle, usually blaming property taxes, crime and housing costs (but very rarely winter).

Sources frequently cited are frankly suspect, such as the “Annual National Moving Study” released by United Van Lines or the yearly “Moving Migration Report” from North American Moving Services / North American Van Lines. That almost seems like the U.S. Surgeon General relying on advice from the tobacco lobby on the effects of cigarette safety, or the EPA seeking counsel on clean air from a coal company.

Also, political voices with vague names can offer conclusions that please their backers. Wirepoints, a conservative think tank that interprets Internal Revenue Service statistics, was used in a commentary on Illinois’ “exodus of residents” by Paul Vallas. The former CEO of school districts in Chicago, Philadelphia and News Orleans who twice unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Chicago, he’s now an “adviser” for the conservative organization Illinois Policy Institute. It promotes conservative points of view in guest essays and issues studies that are backed by contributors ranging from former Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Cato Institute to the Koch and Uihlein families, according to ProPublica and other news organizations.

Pushing perspectives in opinion pages is time-honored discourse, but in news stories it’s close to the unfortunate trend of exaggeration and misinformation, used less to inform or even convince the public of something than to shape people into doubting everything.

Population-loss stories can be incomplete, too, rarely including other factors that affect change, most notably birth rates. For instance, the most recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics says Illinois’ birth rate is 51.8 (an estimate of the number of children born to a group of 1,000 women), and 128,000 annual births. That’s 11% lower than five years earlier, when the birth rate was 57.5 and 144,000 newborns.

In 2022, the Census corrected its data to show Illinois had not lost population, but gained – to 13 million, a 2% undercount.

“This is really good news for Illinois,” Civic Federation President Laurence Msall told the Chicago Sun-Times. “So many of our formulas are based on population.”

The Census inadvertently missed 250,000 residents – akin to omitting Peoria, Fulton and Knox Counties entirely.

A year later, the 2023 UIUC-ILEPI study – a 26-page report titled “A Decade of Illinois’ Migration Patterns” [https://illinoisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ilepi-pmcr-decade-of-illinois-migration-patterns-final.pdf] – used information from the Census and the Illinois Department of Revenue to conclude, “Reports of Illinois’ population decline have been greatly exaggerated,” ILEPI economist Frank Manzo IV told Robert McCoppin of the Chicago Tribune.

“Data show the Illinois population has been stable,” he added. “Illinois is NOT suffering the mass exodus that some have claimed.”

In the report. Manzo and co-author Bob Bruno, a UIUC Professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations and Director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal, say most people moving from Illinois were from downstate and had incomes low enough to be eligible for government aid, with less than half owning homes (and therefore not paying property taxes). The age group that lost the most residents was those 55 and older.

Bruno and Manzo’s work shows the quality as much as the quantity of people arriving in the state, too. From 2013 to 2022, new residents were better educated and reported higher incomes. The state had a 52% increase in taxpayers earning $100,000 to $500,000, and an 80% uptick in taxpayers earning even more.

“Illinois added more than 200,000 taxpayers last decade,” they say.

Bruno said, “People who move, whether into Illinois or out of Illinois, are more likely to be seeking upward economic mobility, either through job opportunities or educational pursuits. They are less likely to be concerned with things like the estate tax, property taxes, or the corporate income tax.

“It’s going to appeal to businesses, college graduates, people working in emerging sectors,” he continued. “That’s an optimistic view of where the state is heading.”

Last year, the state announced that the Census – which keeps updating its findings to be accurate – conceded another undercount – more than 46,000 people living in group homes. That surpassed the decline of 33,000 the bureau reported months before.

Besides neglected updates, overlooked subjectivity and ignored context, future concerns include whether the Census, the National Center for Health Statistics, the Internal Revenue Service – any federal agencies led by Trump loyalists instead of less political figures and civil servants – will be as impartial and forthcoming as they have been.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

What Americans want isn’t what Trump’s doing

More than a crazy numbers game, the last couple of months in the new Trump administration has been chaos without rules, and human beings are affected, not numerals. Still, please excuse the reliance on the numbers to follow.

Locally, at press time, the un-elected, non-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) lists 24 federal spaces to be closed, including Peoria offices of the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Attorneys, and U.S. Trustees. Also, the status of TSA workers at the General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport is unknown, as are about 20 jobs at Peoria’s Ag Lab.

Similar cuts, probably illegal if not unconstitutional, continue.

Nationally, the stock market is volatile. The S&P 500 has lost more than $3 trillion in value since its all-time peak in February, Reuters reported; U.S. consumer confidence this winter dropped by 7 points to 98.3 (the largest monthly decline since August 2021), according to the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index; and MarketWatch said this is the worst start to a presidential  term since 2009, when the subprime mortgage crisis hit.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, told the Washington Post that “business leaders, CEOs and COOs are nervous, bordering on unnerved, by the policies that are being implemented, how they’re being implemented and what the fallout is. There’s overwhelming uncertainty and increasing discomfort with how policy is being implemented.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson added, “Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.”

Indeed, few Americans signed up for what’s erupting from Washington, D.C., according to multiple public-opinion polls. We’re not the crazy ones.

What people actually prefer is dramatically different than what President Trump is trying to enact.

Generally, according to polls taken by CNN, Fox News, Gallup, NPR, Pew, Quinnipiac, YouGov and others, between 60% and 70% of Americans support Medicare for All, term limits for the U.S. Supreme Court, and legal abortion; 70% to 80% of us back labor unions, a higher minimum wage, student debt relief, higher taxes on the wealthy, money out of politics, and we believe the climate change is real; and more than 80% want free pre-Kindergarten and more gun control laws.

Yet, Trump is somehow emboldened by an imaginary “mandate” (his vote total was 49.8% compared to the 50.2% tallied by Kamala Harris combined with independent candidates), plus the Right-wing Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook, various compliant billionaires, and spineless people on Capitol Hill who in the 1940s might have been called “collaborators.”

However, only 35% of American adults say Trump is “honest and trustworthy” (Washington Post-Ipsos)

Here are other examples from polls in recent weeks:

* 82% of Americans favor deporting undocumented immigrants – but that’s if they’ve been convicted of violent crimes (AP-NORC).

* Just 29% of us support eliminating federal jobs (Associated Press-NORC).

* 52% of U.S. adults think Trump has gone too far in using presidential powers (CNN).

* 67% of us think cutting USAID funds will lead to more illness and death in low-income countries (KFF Health).

* Only 13% support Elon Musk’s influence over the executive branch (YouGov), and just 12% think billionaires should be advising the White House (AP-NORC).

* 28% favor changing the Constitution to end birthright citizenship (AP-NORC).

* In Trump’s bizarre foreign affairs ideas, 60% of Americans have “no interest” in taking over Canada (Angus Reid Institute); just 29% are OK with seizing Panama’s Canal (Reuters-Ipsos) and even fewer, 16%, support grabbing Greenland (also Reuters-Ipsos); and 68% view Russia as “unfriendly” or an “enemy” (NBC News|SurveyMonkey) and 52% of us support Ukraine in its war with Russia (CBS/YouGov).

* Just 20% support quitting the Paris Climate Agreement (AP-NORC), and a whopping 55% prefer alternate energy sources such as wind and solar to expanding oil and gas production (AP VoteCast).

* Concerning Medicaid, 40% of us want the funding to remain the same, with 42% wanting it to be increased.

* 83% of us opposed pardoning those convicted in the Jan. 6 insurrection (Washington Post-Ipsos).

* only 23% of us support restricting women from military combat (Scripps News/Ipsos).

* 72% of Americans view the Postal Service favorably (Pew).

 

Ryan Mac, who co-authored “Character Limit,” a book about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, has said that creating confusion is part of the point, asking, “What happens when there is unfettered capitalism that allows people to accumulate this much money and this much power?”

The American people aren’t the ones who are unhinged.

The Other Migration

In the 1980s, cynics and other smart-alecks blasted Peoria’s economic prospects by quipping, “Will the last one to leave Peoria turn out the...