Black Violence Cost Chicago $2.5 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! $2.5 billion is about what? A third of the Chicago budget?

Chicago Killings Cost $2.5 Billion as Murders Top N.Y.’s

“Violence hurts the economy, and sooner or later it permeates everything,” said Teyonda Wertz, head of South Shore’s chamber of commerce. “Unless we change our crime situation, it’ll kill us.”

All told, shootings cost Chicago $2.5 billion a year, or about $2,500 per household, according to Jens Ludwig, director of theUniversity of Chicago Crime Lab. Many of those costs are intangibles, Ludwig said, like keeping people from going outside or letting their children walk to school. Reducing even a fraction of the carnage, though, would free up more money than the city expects to save each year from the closing of 49 elementary schools approved yesterday by the school board.

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