Illinois lost 7,800 private-sector jobs in April, and the state jobless rate fell to 7.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Illinois remains the worst in the Midwest and third-worst nationally for joblessness. Illinois’ private-sector jobs loss came against a gain of 1,000 government jobs, leaving the state with a net loss of...
According to a recent Gallup survey, Illinois residents have the least trust in their own state government compared to every other state in the nation. That is why Illinois lawmakers should make stewardship of taxpayer dollars a top priority. When revelations of wasteful spending or outright fraud come to light, they only serve ti further...
Link to tweet. If you are an employer or are in charge of human resources for your organization, you might soon be on the receiving end of the U.S. Department of Labor’s social media campaign to increase the minimum wage. Unlike the job-creators in the economy, federal bureaucrats don’t seem to fully-grasp how employers determine...
State politicians are in Springfield right now voting on budget bills that call for spending $3 billion more than the state will take in from income tax revenues. These budget bills are fraught with wasteful spending. Here are some examples: House Bill 6149 would appropriate a total of $1.8 billion from the General Revenue Fund...
Gov. Pat Quinn’s approval rating is low, typically hovering just shy of 30 percent. But one thing voters disapprove of even more is hiking property taxes to pay for Chicago pensions. A recent Chicago Sun-Times poll shows that only 1 percent of Chicago voters would support a property tax increase to help prop up the...
The average Illinois family will be forced to pay thousands of dollars in higher taxes if Gov. Pat Quinn has his way. Illinois state government is predicting it will collect about $34.9 billion in tax dollars next year. So naturally, that’s how much Illinois state government plans to spend next year, right? Wrong. Quinn is...
When it comes to government corruption, history often repeats itself in Illinois, both in terms of types of corruption and the failure of government to implement policies that could prevent it. Recently, federal authorities charged the village of Burnham’s long-time village clerk, Nancy Dobrowski, with stealing over $650,000 in funds from local taxpayers. Allegedly, Dobrowski...
Experts from both sides of the aisle are now calling on the Obama administration to eliminate the employer mandate from the president’s signature health-insurance law. A briefing paper released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a liberal-leaning foundation that previously supported former president Bill Clinton’s health-care plan and is now a major supporter of ObamaCare,...
Despite the recent back-slapping and self-congratulations from the Obama administration over the ObamaCare health exchange “enrollments,” there is little reason to believe that the health insurance overhaul is going to have a significant impact on expanding private health insurance coverage in Illinois. Based on national survey data, ObamaCare may have expanded private health coverage to...
For nearly 35 years, Larry Ortega has run his popular horse-drawn carriage business, Chicago Horse and Carriage Ltd. And for all the time he has been in business, Ortega and his staff have operated without a major incident, and demand continues to boom. But an ordinance proposed by Chicago Alderman Ed Burke would put an...
Illinois’ 2011 income tax hike helped put the brakes on the state’s private-sector jobs recovery. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois’ monthly job creation has slowed down since the 2011 tax hike. Meanwhile, the rest of the country has accelerated its jobs growth. The Great Recession began in January 2008, and...
It’s no secret that Chicago is in a pension crisis and deeply in debt. Most of that debt comes from the city’s pensions, but health insurance and long-term debt are also a significant part of Chicago’s fiscal shortfall. In total, Chicago residents are officially on the hook for $63.2 billion in government pensions, health insurance...
After months of hounding by Illinois legislators, the Illinois State Board of Education has finally released a preliminary analysis of Senate Bill 16, a proposed education funding bill that completely transforms how the state distributes money to local districts. Proponents of the bill say the bill makes education funding more equitable. But, as many suburban...
CEOs of major U.S. corporations went on record in Chief Executive Magazine’s “2014 Best and Worst States for Business.” Business leaders pulled no punches in their description of Illinois, going so far as to compare doing business in Illinois to doing business in a third-world country. The publication ranked Illinois at the bottom of the...