Fact- check: No, Chicagoland isn’t only metro area losing residents

“WE ARE THE ONLY METROPOLITAN AREA IN THE COUNTRY THAT’S LOSING POPULATION.” LORI LIGHTFOOT, mayoral hopeful, on May 20 in a radio interview

BY KIANNAH SEPEDA- MILLER Better Government Association

Chicago mayoral hopeful Lori Lightfoot, the former head of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Board, recently jumped into the race to unseat him with a claim that high tax burdens were fueling a population drain.

“The fact that we are the only metropolitan area in the country that’s losing population ought to be a sense of urgency,” Lightfoot said onWGN, reciting a frequent talking point.

“To me, it’s the proverbial canary in the mine shaft.”

Chicago’s population peaked at 3.6 million in 1950 and has been on a downward trajectory for the most part ever since. Fresh data from the U. S. Census shows another small loss in 2017, even though at 2.7 million residents, the city remains the nation’s third- largest.

But the “metropolitan area,” both officially and colloquially, extends far beyond the confines of Chicago. The U. S. Census defines it as nine counties in northeastern Illinois and four in Indiana andWisconsin. What’s more, the Census tracks numbers for 391 defined metropolitan areas in the U. S., and nearly one- quarter of them lost population last year including sizable ones like Pittsburgh.

What is true is that the Chicago region was the only one of the 10 largest metro areas in the nation to shrink in 2017. That’s not what Lightfoot said, however, and it wasn’t a slip- of- the- tongue because she has repeated the claim multiple times.

“Chicago technically is a place. It is different than a metro area,” explained Chicago demographer Rob Paral, who also cautioned there is no solid evidence to support Lightfoot’s other point about correlating taxes with population loss.

A Lightfoot spokeswoman said in an email that when the candidate says “metropolitan area,” she really means Chicago by itself. “When she addresses population loss, she’s referring to the fact that we are on a radically different trajectory than other major metropolitan cities like Los Angeles, New York, Boston or Philadelphia,” the spokeswoman said.

Those big cities did indeed log recent population gains, and Chicago was the only one among the nation’s very largest to decline. But Paral noted that the difference between Chicago’s loss and the gains of the others was so small as to be statistically marginal, calling into question the spokeswoman’s characterization of them as on a “radically different trajectory.”

And while Chicago was an outlier, albeit narrowly, among the biggest cities, that still wouldn’t back up even the most generous reading of Lightfoot’s assertion that it was the only “city” in the U. S. losing population. Census data make clear that plenty of others are as well. Our ruling

Mayor Richard J. Daley got so routinely tongue- tied that his exasperated press secretary famously admonished reporters: “Don’t write what he says, write what he means.”

In Lightfoot’s case, however, it’s not clear exactly what she means when repeatedly talking about “metropolitan areas,” despite her spokeswoman’s words to the contrary.

Lightfoot keeps repeating an incorrect statement that is wrong whether taken literally or figuratively. The Census makes clear that Chicago, the city, is far from the only one in the country that lost population last year. Ditto for Chicago the metropolitan area.

A leading demographer also casts doubt on the existence of any evidence to back up the other beat of her claim, that lowerincome Chicago residents were leaving because of high taxes.

Lightfoot’s comments use a precise term imprecisely to make an unproven argument about population loss. We rate her claim Mostly False.