Black Chicago would benefit from a manufacturing revival

Manufacturing has taken center stage in this year’s presidential election.

At their conventions, in their debate and along the campaign trail, both Democratic Party nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican Party nominee former President Donald Trump have boasted about their efforts to save manufacturing jobs and trumpeted their plans to bring back even more.

Still, the industry continues to lag from its glory days decades ago. Roughly 22 million Americans worked in manufacturing in 1980, according to census data. About 16 million were employed in that sector in 2020.

Both Harris and Trump have targeted Middle America on the stump. In particular, key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have been on their radar. Indeed, those states might very well determine who wins the election in November, and Rust Belt states have been among those hit hardest by manufacturing’s decline.

But they’re missing a key demographic: Black folks, particularly in Chicago.

In 1980, an estimated 88,000 Black Chicaogans worked in manufacturing, the highest number of Black residents working in the industry in any U.S. city. By 2020, that figure had dipped to roughly 17,000, according to census estimates. The net loss of more than 70,000 Black residents in manufacturing leads all American cities, the data show.

There was some talk about manufacturing at the United Center during the Democratic National Convention in August. But little was said about the loss of manufacturing in communities just a stone's throw from the convention site, nor was much offered about how the party’s plans for manufacturing would benefit Black Chicagoans.

A ticket to the middle class

Stable sources of employment paying middle-class wages are sorely needed in the city’s Black communities, many of which are still reeling from the tens of thousands of jobs lost as a result of factory closures on Chicago’s West and South sides during the past few decades.

Five years ago, WBEZ examined the impact of manufacturing’s loss on Black Chicago. We heard from several residents with vivid memories of manufacturing’s heyday and how it provided a solid economic foundation for many Black families. A good factory job provided a ticket to the middle class for Black workers, especially those without a college degree.

They also shared stories of how things began to deteriorate as the factories closed. Many middle-class Black families moved to the suburbs. Meanwhile, the factory jobs never came back, and the service economy failed to fill in the gap both in terms of jobs and wages.

In 1960, manufacturing was the leading employment sector for Black Chicagoans, and the unemployment rate in the city’s majority-Black communities was roughly 10%. In 2020, manufacturing ranked seventh among all industries for Black Chicagoans, and the unemployment rate in the city’s Black communities hovered around 20%.

While manufacturing in the city waned, factory jobs fared better in the suburbs. But gaps in transportation and training have kept many of those jobs out of reach for many in Chicago’s Black communities, despite noble and impassioned efforts to address those shortcomings.

Chicago leaders have also tried to stem the loss of manufacturing with mixed results due to the scale of de-industrialization and rampant disinvestment in some parts of the city.

Manufacturing is likely to remain a hot topic during these last few weeks of the presidential election campaign. My hope is not only that voters will push the presidential candidates beyond rhetoric and pin them down on solid strategies to bring manufacturing jobs back to those who could benefit from them.

But I also hope the dialogue drills down deeper to show why manufacturing’s loss has been so devastating and how it helps explain the state of our communities today.

Poor Black communities are often viewed as dens of dysfunction, where individuals lack effort and a sense of morality. However, the truth is that they weren’t always hotspots for crime and poverty. The failures to address the economic challenges and systemic racism these communities and individuals have endured are often overlooked. Many neighborhoods on the West and South sides began witnessing their harshest years after the factories closed.

Perhaps the focus on how to restore this once-thriving industry sector can push us all to rethink how we view the communities that have suffered the most from manufacturing’s decline. Such a shift in perspective might be just as necessary as an effective economic strategy to help those communities thrive once again.

Alden Loury is data projects editor for WBEZ and writes a column for the Sun-Times.

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