Mayoral run-off candidate Brandon Johnson spoke out against a city policy that suspends a person’s business license for unpaid fines. The policy has impacted ride-share drivers, local business owners, and others who find themselves limited in their ability to work and caught in a cycle of debt.
Johnson is running for Chicago mayor in a run-off election against Paul Vallas set for April 4.
"As someone who is a part of the working class, I will be a champion for all Chicago workers, and that absolutely includes gig workers," said Johnson. "Right now, fines and fees can essentially halt a gig worker’s ability to do their job. This only serves to exacerbate the type of economic instability that has led to the type of stratified economy that we have now, and we must come to a solution that ends this discriminatory outcome.”
Chicago is the only major U.S. city that deactivates gig workers for their unpaid ticket debts. The policy has negatively impacted low-income Black households, which make up eight out of the 10 ZIP codes with the most ticket debt in the Chicago area.
In a previous interview with the Southland Marquee, Johnson said this type of policy increases inequality.
“It’s definitely a problem because drivers get suspended or sometimes, even worse, they get criminalized and they're not able to work and they're essentially being sentenced one way or the other through these awful fines and fees, or held in criminal court,” Johnson said.
“We should be doing everything we can to encourage people to work. The city of Chicago should be leading the way to create opportunities to help these workers actually deal with the debt they are accruing because of these aggressive tickets.”
Previous reporting by Illinois investigative journalists revealed that Chicago's stringent ticketing policies have had a devastating impact on gig workers who are unable to keep up with mounting fines while supporting themselves and their families. In 2019, the most recent year in which data was available, the City required Uber and Lyft to “deactivate,” over 15,500 drivers and prevent those 15,500 drivers from accessing the Uber app.
The City believes ride-share drivers will be compelled to pay off their debt if they are prohibited from working. Unfortunately, analysis has found that as the City clamped down on Uber and Lyft drivers, there was a corresponding increase in the number of Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings. In 2007, less than 1,000 drivers filed for bankruptcy due to unpaid traffic violations with an average debt of around $1,500. Ten years later that number rose to over 10,000 bankruptcies with a typical debt owed to the city of $3,900.