Tax Returns Reveal Amara Enyia's Self-Imposed Poverty, Vision

Too many so-called progressives who want to be Chicago mayor beat around the bush when they talk about why our town needs a big change at City Hall. So on Sunday, as TV cameras focused on millennial mayoral contender Amara Enyia, I just said it: Chicago is a racist city run by rich white guys, right?

Enyia didn’t hesitate.

“Yes. … You just said it. Chicago is a racist city that’s run by rich white people. … I’m a young black woman from the West Side that decided to run for mayor. … You might not see the outrage … but it’s not [about] me,” she said.

“I represent communities that have been saying those very things for years. I represent organizers who have been organizing on those issues for years. … We’re concerned about what we need to do so this status quo does not win in this election.”

Enyia made a campaign stop at the Silver Room pop-up shop in Wicker Park to talk about how poor people get screwed over by a city government that favors the rich in almost every conceivable way. The cameras were there, Enyia joked, because she promised to talk about her tax returns after previously balking at the request.

“There’s not much in there,” the 35-year-old West Side community activist said of her federal tax returns, getting laughs from a crowd of about 60 supporters.

For Enyia, the “not much” you’ll find in her tax documents isn’t a laughing matter. Indeed, it’s the reason she released the income reports along with an “economic justice” platform aimed at ending policies that inequitably punish Chicago scofflaws for not being able to afford the bill for minor civil indiscretions.

She knows from her own life that the two things go together, she said during our private chat Sunday.

“This is me using my personal experience as a Chicagoan to have a broader conversation that includes the voices of other Chicagoans rather than just sending my tax returns to a reporter who asked for it and letting them write whatever story they want to write,” Enyia said. “The campaign has to be about raising issues that I hear about in my neighborhood.”

In 2015, Enyia, who has a law and doctorate degrees, made $9,890, according to her 2016 tax return.

“What did that mean for me personally? It means I’m eating popcorn and grapefruit juice for six months. That’s legit,” she said.

Amara Enyia's 2016 Tax Return on Scribd

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And like a lot of people, Enyia learned that in Chicago the consequence for choosing to pay for food instead of overdue parking tickets is getting an immobilizing “boot” slapped on the vehicle you rely on to get to work, because it’s happened to her, too.

That’s what inspired her campaign promise to “ban the boot” — the city’s punishment for having two unpaid parking tickets — and revamp debt payment options to allow poor residents to pay off debts with public service.

“However you feel about tickets, it matters. However you feel about getting a boot, it matters … because people will literally move out of the city if they get one ticket too many,” she said. “People have already voted by leaving. If we don’t care about those things that we tend to ignore, things are going to get worse.”

In 2016, Enyia had a better financial year. Her adjusted gross income was $42,055, according to her 2017 tax filings. That’s about $10,000 less than Chicago’s median household income and $2.46 million less than Bill Daley, the richest candidate in the race.

Amara Enyia's 2017 Tax Return on Scribd

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In case you're wondering, she doesn’t have any off-shore holdings to avoid paying taxes. She’s not poor, either. And she didn’t grow up poor. She went to college. She also says that over the years she has turned down high-paying jobs because they didn’t “align with what’s in my spirit.”

“I intentionally didn’t work for some organizations because that would limit my ability to be critical of some things that are happening in the city. I know that I have the privilege of being able to do that,” she said.

“People who I live next to don’t have that choice. It makes me even more adamant about why things in this city must change. These are my neighbors. These are dudes on the corner that want to work but can’t because they have a record. These are people selling lose squares because they need to, not because it’s fun. They all get overlooked because most of the folks running for office only care about the 30 percent of people who are going to vote anyway. Our whole campaign is that we care about the other 70 percent, and they have a voice, too.”

Enyia told me that as mayor she would push to make Chicago a “more compassionate” city for the poor with new policies that are “progressive, productive and non-punitive.”

As the even-tempered mayoral hopeful made her heartfelt pitch for “institutionalizing responsibility” and other wonky visions for a kinder, gentler City Hall, I couldn't help but think it all sounds idealistic and pipe-dreamy — not at all the kind of thing that will happen in a racist city run by rich white guys.

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