I knew Cleveland was second. And chances are, with a little less work and more corruption in government, misdirecting of available funds to frivolous things like rebuilding the east side entertainment district rather than fixing the school system, paving those awful roads, even TRYING to clean up the drug traffic in the ghetto, they can be Numero Uno someday!!! I grew up in Cleveland and now live 35 miles south. When I lived up there, the metro area had 1.5 million people. That continues to shrink as the schools fall apart. Parents don't want their kids attending schools that shut down half of the classrooms and sit kids 2 to a desk because it's 7 degrees outside and there is no money available to fix the windows that the ghetto punks have broken out. The option is private school, but they have priced themselves out of reach for inner city families. The last time I knew it was a minimum of $7000 a year for the lower end private schools. The best 2 in the city, who have SUCH high academic requirements that the average inner city kid (who likely can't read - the system passes everybody because of the "No child left behind" crap) simply can't afford it. It is more cost effective for the family to take that several thousands of dollars and buy a house in the suburbs and send the kids to a better public school.

The city has been "dummied down" and in an effort to try and appear to be coming back, they create a lot of menial jobs (like fast food jobs and down) and post inflated statistics to appear to have created jobs. They can legitimately show that X number of jobs were created, even though that job is working on the janitorial crew at a place like the area where the Cavs play. Sure they have "a job" sweeping up 41 times per season, but does that feed a family? We just had a couple highly placed city officials found guilty of taking MANY dollars in kickbacks, as well as services in exchange for, when bidding out jobs. One guy had several thousands of dollars worth of work done on his house for free in exchange for giving a huge project to a company that was not even close to the lowest bidder. What IS good is very good. But there isn't that much good anymore.

#1 is within reach and I think they'll get there. There is nothing in Cleveland to draw young people to move there. Plenty to draw visitors, but not much there once you've seen everything once. Certainly not a lot of job opportunities for college educated types. Really a blue collar town, and as the rules of society have changed, as the economy has dipped, as leadership has shifted focus to big business, the kids now learn that they can make more money on the street of they are willing to risk getting caught selling their drugs. Most say "I'll risk it" because even if they get caught, jail is better than where they live now.

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.