Just ahead of Friday’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, local think tank Illinois Policy earlier this week released a report showing that despite the two best months of job growth in 9 years, the state lags far behind in recovering from the Great Recession.

The report points out that in November and December, the state had it’s best consecutive 2 month period of job growth since 2006:

Illinois rehabilitation services could face a $110 million shortfall in programs that cover mental health and developmentally disabled adults.

The Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises reports payments that support the two programs are slowing.

The $35.7 billion budget lawmakers passed in May does not include enough money for the rest of the fiscal year. Vital state programs are waiting to see how Gov. Bruce Rauner and the legislature will keep funds flowing.

Karina Rivera was a straight-A student at Waters Elementary when her family moved, hoping to make her commute to Lane Tech shorter.

Rivera’s older brother attended Lane, and with her good grades, she thought she’d be a shoo-in.

“I didn’t get in,” she said. “I felt like I let my family down.”

While a certain degree of income inequality might be expected, the difference between rich and poor Americans has grown dramatically in recent years. As of 2013, the wealthiest 20% of Americans had more income in aggregate than the bottom 80% combined.

State and local tax systems play a significant role in redistributing income among people. The nationwide average effective tax rate for the poorest 20% of Americans was 10.9%, roughly double the 5.4% rate for the top 1%.

When looking at taxes paid as a share of the income earned, all states have a regressive tax system, which means poorer residents are taxed more than the wealthiest ones. The difference in effective tax rates between income groups, however, varies widely between states. According to “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States,” a report released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), Washington has by far the most regressive tax system nationwide. Based on the index score, a ratio calculated from a range of factors to measure income inequality before and after taxes, these are the states with the most unfair tax systems for the average American.

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, called on Will County elected officials to support legislation highlighting the issue of “payer states” like Illinois losing billions in federal spending.

As Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner sets his sights on limiting the influence of unions in Illinois, he’s pushing an idea he’s dubbed “empowerment zones” — areas across the state where voters could decide if workers in their communities should be forced to join a union or pay associated dues.

It’s a variation of what is more commonly called “right to work” — rules put in place at a statewide level to prevent unions from requiring workers who decline membership to pay related fees to cover the cost of collective bargaining they still benefit from. The concept, which generally applies to private-sector unions, has gained traction among conservative politicians across the nation as states try to spur economic growth following a brutal recession that saw businesses close and tax dollars dry up.

The like-minded new governor is unlikely to get a statewide ban on forced union membership from a General Assembly firmly controlled by Democrats, who historically have relied on employee unions for support come campaign season. Empowerment zones represent a trial program on the local level.

In Chicago, food trucks aren’t allowed to operate within 200 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. These mobile businesses struggle to survive in pockets of busy, overcrowded “parking zones,” which are the only places they are allowed to sell to hungry customers.

Vendors have endured a long struggle with City Hall for the right to do business in Chicago.

“Opening and operating a food truck in Chicago is somewhere between difficult and impossible,” said Robert Frommer, an attorney for the D.C.-based Institute for Justice. “The city has put together a menagerie of rules that seem almost intended to make it as hard as possible to open up and be successful.”