One of the big developments last year in socioeconomics was news of a massive shift in poverty from the city to the suburbs—where poverty grew at more twice the rate of cities' already-substantial growth—over the past decade, particularly in the Chicago area:
The shifting poverty demographic can be seen in Chicago's suburbs, where the number of poor increased by 99 percent in the last decade — from 363,966 to 724,233, said Elizabeth Kneebone, co-author of "Confronting Suburban Poverty in America."
That was a greater increase than recorded in the New York City or Los Angeles regions, according to the book.
A new report from Voices for Illinois Children shows how child poverty followed that trend. Child-poverty rates are still considerably higher in Chicago than anywhere else, and still lower in the collar counties, but the percentage increase was greatest in the latter.
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During those five years, the number of children in poverty in the collar counties increased by almost 44,000, compared to 4,000 in Chicago and 100,000 statewide: in other words, the increase in the collar counties amounted to almost half the statewide increase.
Adding more children to the poverty rolls is worrisome, in part because of a pattern that's clear in the the report: the difference in outcomes for children at 200-400 percent of the federal poverty line, and children above 400 percent, are modest, but below 200 percent there's a big difference. (And that number includes 42 percent of kids in Illinois.
Take health, for example:
![](/wp-content/archive/whet/Screen%20shot%202014-03-10%20at%204_14_23%20PM.png)
Or mental health:
![](/wp-content/archive/whet/Screen%20shot%202014-03-10%20at%204_16_27%20PM.png)
Or perceptions of safety:
![](/wp-content/archive/whet/Screen%20shot%202014-03-10%20at%204_18_09%20PM.png)
There is some good news in the stats. The infant mortality rate in Illinois fell faster than the national average from 2000-2010 (from 8.5 percent to 6.8 percent). Lead poisoning rates for kids under six dropped drastically: in 2000 the rate in Illinois was 9.4 percent, more than twice the national average; it's now down to 1.1 percent, just 0.5 more than the national average. It's just one data point, but it's really, really important.