by Ashley Muchow The economy has proved to be the most important topic in politics today. Rightfully so. Come the end of last month, U.S. unemployment stood at 9.6%. Economic activity left much to be desired as GDP rose 1.6% in the second quarter of 2010, compared to a 3.6% increase in the first. Naturally, Washington feels obliged...
by Kate Piercy “Where are the new jobs?” asks John Stossel in his article today. Why aren’t businesses hiring? Well, Stossel concludes businesses will not start investing in new workers until the current “regime of uncertainty” ends, explaining: After previous recessions, unemployment didn’t get stuck at close to 10 percent. If left alone, the economy can...
by Kate Piercy Here’s an interesting chart from the Mercatus Center’s Veronique de Rugy, who has examined different states’ unemployment at the time The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed and the stimulus funds each state has received so far. De Rugy found no correlation between the two variables. The chart suggests stimulus funds...
by Kristina Rasmussen Add this to Illinois’s debt tab. According to the State Journal-Register: Illinois has borrowed more than $2.2 billion from the federal government since July 2009 to pay unemployment benefits. Unemployment benefits are funded through withholding taxes on employers; raising those taxes in a fragile economy is a non starter.
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson At the end of July, the White House’s Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board claimed more than 750,000 jobs were funded by the economic stimulus package last quarter. This estimate was the highest total reported so far, and some saw this as “encouraging news.” But Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at...
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson On Wednesday, Alderman Scott Waguespack introduced an ordinance that would allow mobile food trucks to prepare food on-site. The existing food trucks in the city are only allowed to sell food that is prepared and packaged beforehand. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: “If we have all of our bases covered in terms of health...
by Brian Costin There is a bit of good news from Governor Quinn’s office making the papers today. Quinn recently signed into law a pro-enterprise bill in regards to reducing the licensing requirements on hair braiders. Back in March, the Institute’s Executive Vice President, Kristina Rasmussen,testified on the principles behind the HB 5783 bill sponsored by Rep. William Burns...
by Kate Piercy Last year, the White House told us the stimulus bill would cut unemployment, estimating it would be down to 7.5 percent today. As Dan Mitchell writes in today’s New York Post, “something obviously went wrong.” Today we’re at 9.5 percent unemployment. What happened? Part of the problem, according to Mitchell, was the faith in...
by Heather Wilhelm Over at The Atlantic’s blog, Derek Thompson posts “The Scariest Unemployment Graphic I’ve Seen Yet”: “The median duration of unemployment is higher today than any time in the last 50 years,” he writes. “That’s an understatement. It is more than twice as high today than any time in the last 50 years.” So what does...
by Ashley Muchow CNBC recently came out with their 2010 ranking of America’s Top States for Business. This year, the Lone Star State earned its title as America’s foremost state for business. Illinois managed to remain in the bottom half, dropping from #25 last year to #30. CBNC calculates the rankings based on ten categories reflective of the strain or...
Ashley Muchow Amid the financial turmoil that has inflicted most every world region in the past decade, much attention has been given to the timeless question of whether free markets work. Ultimately, are we better off in a free market economy or is this just an erroneous belief whose figureheads undeservedly became household names? Pew...
by Richard Lorenc, Guest Blogger We’ve been hearing lots about how giving money to unemployed folks creates jobs (or not) over the past few days. But how much, exactly, do these benefits cost? While we won’t have figures from 2010 for a while longer, the Labor Department says American taxpayers spent $76.8 billion in unemployment...
by Ashley Muchow Considering the current financial woes affecting Illinois’s economy, coming to you with more bleak news isn’t fun. Onward. Congress has before it the Financial Reform Bill; a reform bill intended to overhaul the financial system as we know it. But before you begin thanking Washington for coming to the rescue; for protecting...
Recently, a number of Illinois state government employees received pay raises in the midst of an economic recession and ongoing budget crisis. Was this an isolated incident? No, it’s a trend. The chart above was constructed using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and it shows the compensation of public and private employees indexed against the first...