The tax debate has not settled on rich and poor districts. Yet

We advocates of a progressive income tax so the wealthiest pay more than they do now have not done a good job explaining how lower and middle class incomes are, in fact, most people in the state. And that means most legislators represent lower and middle class incomes, so ought to push for higher income taxes on higher incomes because people in districts with lower and middle incomes don't pay higher income taxes.

I started to wonder which districts were wealthier and poorer. Fortunately, the UIS puts out the Almanac of Illinois Politics that lists the median family income of each legislative district.

I went through and pulled out all of the Senate districts. Then I sorted from poorest to wealthiest.

Since the average income is just shy of $60,000, any district with a median family income less than that would benefit from raising taxes on family income above $60,000, essentially.

Who are those districts? Here they are.

34631	Munoz
35334	Hunter
38383	Forby
39115	Delgado
41451	Collins
41524	Ronen
41623	Martinez
41951	Jones
43361	Hendon
43479	Sandoval
43642	Demuzio
43655	Sullivan
44181	Trotter
44569	Koehler
44719	Clayborne
46139	Righter
46249	Frerichs
47399	Luechtefeld
48313	Syverson
48644	Raoul
48921	Jacobs
49156	Watson
50138	Meeks
50527	Sieben
52298	Haine
52458	Jones
52903	Lightford
53623	Dahl
54027	Risinger
55466	Halvorson
55602	Bomke
56081	Viverito
57290	Rutherford
57393	Wilhelmi
58405	Brady
60254	DeLeo
60749	Noland
61571	Harmon
62113	Burzynski
62407	Silverstein
63662	Maloney
64391	Holmes
66997	Crotty
69839	Bond
70923	Pankau
71762	Althoff
71951	Kotowski
74580	Link
80735	Millner
80889	Cronin
81073	Lauzen
85163	Murphy
87664	Hultgren
88700	Radogno
91877	Peterson
92565	Dillard
94302	Cullerton
99857	Garrett
100722	Schoenberg

Interesting, isn't it? Lots of Downstate districts are poor, including Downstate Republican districts. But anecdotal evidence suggests Downstate voters have not yet embraced a progressive income tax, even though it's to their economic advantage. That's a public challenge we progressive tax advocates need to meet.

[Update: typo fixed after seeing it on the front page of Capitol Fax -- thanks Rich/Paul]