Chicago's Metro Prosperity Report Card

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jun 12, 2008 6:47PM

A report from the Brookings Institute today examines "metropolitan areas' progress toward achieving productive, inclusive, and sustainable growth that drives national prosperity." How's Chicago doing?

• Our GDP average $99,313 per job, which is above both the 100 largest metro areas' average and the US average, but the 7.8 increase between 2001 and 2005 is below average

• 31.6 percent of Chicagoans 25 and over have attained a bachelors degree or higher. Nationally, the average is 27 percent, and the metro average is 30.6; 84.6 percent finished high school, which is slightly worse than the metro average and slightly better than the national one.

• "The top 10 percent of metropolitan Chicago's workers earned hourly wages in 2005 that were 6.3 times higher than those of workers in the bottom 10 percent." That's the same as the national average, and the 18th highest ratio of income disparity.

• Metro Chicago residents each emit 1.965 metric tons of carbon per year, which makes us the 15th lowest emitters.

• The number of families in Chicago considered middle class—those making between 80 and 150 percent of their metro area's median income—fell 14 percentage points from 1970. It's the 9th biggest drop for the 100 metro areas.

• We have the 11th-lowest vehicle miles traveled, with 7,540.5 miles per person.

Read the whole report here.

Photo by fjsjr