Illinois is staring down a public health crisis that could double as a rare blue-collar boom. Replacing nearly 1.5 million known and suspected lead service lines could support as many as 90,000 jobs over the next decade, according to a new analysis. Whether that turns into a long, steady run of middle-class careers or just a quick construction spike will come down to how lawmakers, utilities, and unions handle money and training.
Report lays out jobs math and policy fixes
The analysis, prepared by MKM Consultants in collaboration with Current, Elevate, and HIRE360, tracks how federal, state, and local dollars could flow into hiring across plumbing, operating engineers, laborers, and other trades. According to a report by the Metropolitan Planning Council, current federal allocations would be enough for roughly 2,000 direct hires and about 9,000 indirect jobs. If Illinois closes the funding gap, that could grow to around 35,000 direct jobs and 55,000 indirect jobs over ten years.
The authors lay out a playbook that includes block-by-block contracting, equity requirements in bid documents, and dedicated funding for pre-apprenticeship supports. The idea is to make sure the work actually reaches residents in historically disinvested neighborhoods instead of bypassing them.
Money, timing, and scale
On paper, Illinois already knows the scale of its problem. The Illinois EPA inventory shows about 667,000 confirmed lead service lines and roughly 820,000 lines listed as unknown, for a total that lands near 1.5 million. State officials estimate that replacing them all could cost between 6 billion and 10 billion dollars, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. Nationwide, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has set aside 15 billion dollars for lead service line replacement, according to the U.S. EPA. That mismatch between massive need and limited state-level funding is the core problem the report says lawmakers must solve.
Using workforce multipliers from the American Water Works Association and the U.S. EPA, the report’s authors estimate that the current federal allotments would generate about 2,000 direct jobs and 9,000 indirect positions. If Illinois comes up with the rest of the money needed, the totals could climb to roughly 35,000 direct and 55,000 indirect jobs over a decade. “They’re not going to add additional people to apprenticeship programs,” HIRE360 executive director Jay Rowell told the Chicago Sun-Times, arguing that real job growth depends on predictable, long-term funding instead of one-off grants.
Why Chicago matters
Chicago is the epicenter of the crisis. Regional analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago puts the city’s lead service line inventory in the high hundreds of thousands, the largest single concentration in the country. Local reporting and officials say full replacements in Chicago have often come in far above national averages, sometimes 15,000 to 40,000 dollars per home, according to Inside Climate News. That price tag is a big reason the report pushes block-level contracts and centralized financing to drive per-unit costs down.
Planners argue that packaging work into larger contracts and building contractor capacity across the state could help cut costs and create steadier, less boom-and-bust career paths.
The report also flags a serious labor market gap. Citing data from the Inclusive Economy Lab, it notes that in the Chicago region, only 3.8 percent of registered building trade apprentices are women, and just 10 percent are Black. To widen the pipeline, the authors recommend funding supports that remove barriers to apprenticeship completion, including childcare, transportation, and stipends, and building diversity and hiring targets into contract language so projects intentionally recruit from the communities most affected by lead.
The report argues that those steps would expand the contractor pool and help ensure that the economic benefits of lead service line replacements are spread more equitably. For the full set of recommendations, see the Metropolitan Planning Council analysis.
If Illinois lawmakers and utilities treat lead line replacement as a coordinated, equity-focused infrastructure program, with predictable funding, inclusive contracting, and a well-supported pipeline of apprentices, the state could tackle a pressing public health threat while building a more diverse, stable construction workforce. Without that shift, advocates warn that replacements will drag out, cost more, and fall short of the long-term career opportunities the policy now hints at.
