Abraham Lincoln’s Home State Has the Chance to Tax the Rich This Election Season
Holding the Social Service Workers United sign on the right, organizer Elena Gormley marches among the crowd at Unemployment Day. Sporting short auburn hair, glittery red eyebrows, and a black mask that says “still speaks loudly,” Gormley said the group is a space where people can fight to be “paid well, have good benefits and manageable caseloads.” (PHOTO BY IZZY STROOBANDT).
By Izzy Stroobandt
Days off aren’t taken lightly in the demanding field of social work. For one Chicago social worker, however, phone banking for the Fair Tax was a worthy excuse to skip a day of work last Friday.
“The reality is, the wealth is out there — it’s just not distributed equitably,” said nonprofit clinician Lili Gecker. She’s both a member of an informal collective called Social Service Workers United and the chief steward of SEIU Local 73, a union representing nearly a thousand nonprofit workers.
On Nov. 3 Illinois voters have the opportunity to ratify an amendment to the state constitution that would allow a graduated rate structure for income tax. Advocates call the new rate the “Fair Tax” because it generates revenue while only raising taxes on the wealthiest 3% of Illinoisans and cutting taxes on the other 97%.
Two billionaires account for nearly all the funding on each side; Gov. J.B. Pritzker has donated $56.5 million in support of the tax, and Ken Griffin, CEO of investment firm Citadel and the richest man in Illinois, has donated $46.8 in opposition. Where the remaining funds came from also represents the forces on each side of the debate; unions and grassroots groups are supporting the tax through mostly in-kind contributions — Gecker’s union included — and donations to the opposition came from men who sit with Griffin atop the list of Illinois’ richest, according to Illinois State Board of Elections data.
Many proponents of the tax hope the revenue will be funneled into social service agencies whose budgets have seen devastating cuts by the state in the last decade. Some Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and Human Service agencies have seen a state-funding decrease of up to 81% since 2010 according to the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.
COVID-19 has made many inequalities starker and more extreme. According to University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration Professor Colleen Grogan, the pandemic has caused a surge in the need for the exact social services that are suffering most from budget cuts.
Vicarious trauma and burnout from the job’s emotional toll is exacerbated by the inadequate funding omnipresent among social services.
To keep the counseling department afloat Gecker said her work requests they bill for as many services as possible. That means she’s constantly asked to increase her caseload, which, combined with having to navigate the obstacle course that is providing care to clients on Medicaid, also contributes significantly to her burnout.
“It’s this constant balancing act of working against the system to try to get my clients the help they need,” she said. Gecker often starts her morning and ends her workday worrying about how to best support her clients, and she even recently had a dream about a client.
The emotional requirement, partnered with a lack of support from higher-ups and barely livable wages, makes for a high turnover rate in state-funded social work as people leave for the private sector.
“That can be really disruptive to continuity of care for clients,” Gecker said, later adding it is especially problematic in adolescents who commonly have abandonment-based trauma.
Bronzeville resident Ebony Davis worked for DCFS before enrolling in Loyola University Chicago’s master’s program in social work. She said transferring onto a case makes the job 10 times harder.
“You don’t know what works, or what the previous caseworker did or didn’t do. You don’t know what to expect,” Davis said about the part of the job that often left her feeling discouraged.
Grogan said the Fair Tax could provide the necessary funding to have more practitioners and services available, helping prevent vicarious trauma and burnout in social work. By investing in the human service industry, the state could allow programs to hire more and support the health of both the public and its workers so on top of being in “a difficult profession where they’re working with people day after day who have really serious and profound needs,” they’re not also asked to have extensive caseloads, she said.
“You can’t just keep shutting this problem away, you need to help people,” Grogan said. “They’re in crisis states and the best way to do it is to invest in social services.”