Detroiters vote increase in the city's income tax

Heeding Mayor Coleman A. Young's warning that Detroit was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, voters overwhelmingly approved a city income tax increase in a special election sharply divided along racial lines. Blacks strongly favored the increase; whites did not.

With all the votes counted, voters approved by a 3-to-2 ratio a proposal to raise the tax on residents from 2 percent to 3 percent and on nonresident s who work in the city from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent.