Reason: Guess the Only State Where Less Than Half the People Work
What state has the lowest labor participation rate? It’s West Virginia, where only 49.8 percent of people age 16 and up are actually working. The labor participation rate is the “the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 and over working or looking for work.” It includes people who have given up looking for jobs and are thus not captured in the most widely followed measure of unemployment and it also includes civilians who are disabled. Nationally, the labor participation rate in December (the most recent figure) was 62.7 percent. The highest rate is in North Dakota, where the fracking and shale oil boom has pushed the number to 69.5 percent.
As Marketwatch notes, West Virginia’s unemployment rate is 6.3 percent, with 14 states having worse outcomes on that score. Part of the problem is that West Virginia’s population is older, which correlates with lower labor participation rates.
Overall, the labor participation rate in the United States has been tanking since 2000. So while the financial crisis plays a big role, especially among older workers who took buyouts and retired, it’s not the whole story. Neither is the general aging of the population, which tends to lower the participation rate.
Daily Herald: Rauner working to post local government salaries online
Gov. Bruce Rauner Thursday says he’s directing the state to start helping local governments post all their employment and salary data online.
State Rep. Jack Franks won approval in 2012 for a law requiring the state to post local government salaries online, but Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration never implemented it. The law applied to county, township and municipal employees.
Quinn’s administration argued it didn’t have to because it wasn’t given the money to follow through.
Sauk Valley: Undue licensing harmful to Illinois' overall economy
Why do we license barbers?
Or interior decorators?
I’ve never quite understood Illinois’ need to create barriers for people to enter certain vocations.
Chicago Sun Times: Pomp, pledges and punchlines as legislators are sworn in
Pledges of bipartisanship flowed freely Wednesday as Illinois’ legislative leaders formally took office in Springfield on a day filled with pageantry, families — and a few zingers.
Lawmakers publicly welcomed a new era of two-party rule during the swearings-in of the Illinois House of Representatives and the Senate. House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John J. Cullerton, both Democrats, officially retained leadership roles of their respective chambers.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner fulfilled his constitutional duty of presiding over the Senate inauguration at the state Capitol, sticking mostly to a script but joking that he was “stunned” after Cullerton’s certain election was secured.
Chicago Tribune: Emanuel talks Chicago economy; critics say he hasn't done enough
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday laid out a second-term economic plan he said would focus on the city’s struggling neighborhoods as he fights critics who say his policies so far have mainly benefited wealthier Chicagoans.
Emanuel went to the Far South Side for a campaign speech light on new proposals and heavy on what he says were his first-term economic successes in which he said areas of the city outside downtown already are seeing a better jobs outlook on his watch.
Six weeks before he stands for re-election, the mayor is working to win back African-American voters who gave him strong support in his first election but who have grown disenchanted with him since, according to Chicago Tribune polling. The Emanuel campaign event at Method, a new manufacturing company in a predominantly black neighborhood, highlighted what he called “a comeback story for Pullman.”
Washington Post: A new bill could mark the beginning of the end of the Common Core
Congress is set to rewrite the laws governing the nation’s schools this year, and the Common Core might turn into a history lesson.
The Obama administration has quietly supported the national standards for students in kindergarten through high school, developed with the support of the Gates Foundation by a group of state education officials. Only a handful of states have refused to adopt the Core or have abandoned it, despite widespread frustration with the standards among conservatives and educators.
That could change with legisation released Tuesday by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the new chairman of the Senate’s education committee. In a rebuke to the administration, Alexander’s bill implies that Obama’s Education Department has overstepped its authority and gives states more freedom to choose their own academic standards, among other things.
Fortune: Companies are still struggling to implement Obamacare
The close of 2014 marked the first full year of Obamacare, but corporations are still struggling with how to implement its reporting and regulatory standards.
About half of both mid-sized and large employers say they are not fully prepared to accurately apply all of the Affordable Care Act compliance standards, according to anew study by ADP ADP -0.24% . Only 46% of mid-sized companies and 51% of large ones say they are equipped to meet the annual health care reporting requirements.
“The reporting that has to be done has to be accurate,” said David Marini, a vice president and managing director for ADP’s strategic advisory services. “Someone has to sign off that these documents are correct. There’s a whole new level of rigor.”
The Next Web: Elon Musk confirms plans to build Hyperloop test track ‘most likely in Texas’
It’s been a while since we last heard about Elon Musk’s ambitious Hyperloop project, a transit system that could theoretically take passengers on rides upward of 700 miles per hour.
Today, Musk tweeted that Hyperloop’s next stage is forthcoming. A test track will be built for companies and student teams to test pods, “likely in Texas.”
Musk also says he plans to use the Hyperloop test track to hold annual pod racer competitions akin to the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers contest. It is unclear when exactly the track will be built, but now we know the train of the future is riding closer to reality.