Illinois has 43 percent of the nation’s public pension plans, according to a 2012 study published by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or COGFA, conducted by Marquette Associates on local police and fire pensions in Illinois. According to publicly available data, there are 1,511 public pension plans in the United States. With 657...
Almost 365,000 Americans have “enrolled” in the ObamaCare exchanges, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That number is far below the Obama administration’s impending goal of enrolling 3 million people by the end of December and 7 million by the end of March. But the true number of people who have...
Last month, Chicago was poised to become the second city in Illinois to impose burdensome new restrictions on e-cigarettes, threatening to regulate them like tobacco products even though they contain no tobacco. But after facing strong opposition at the City Council’s joint Finance and Health Committee hearing on Monday, a much weaker version of the...
House Speaker Mike Madigan and proponents of the temporary pension “fix” enacted last week promised taxpayers that it would immediately reduce the state’s unfunded pension liability by about $20 billion. But despite these promises, the credit rating agencies have indicated that they would be waiting for actuarial analyses before making any decisions on how the new law...
While teachers unions hold tremendous power, cracks are starting to appear in their foundations. As Stephanie Simon reports in Politico, both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are dealing with new challenges: declining membership, the growing popularity of Right-to-Work laws and a loss of support among the public. As Simon describes...
While the media and politicians across Illinois celebrate the state’s “landmark,” “monumental” and “courageous” pension fix, for most Illinoisans nothing has changed. Taxpayers will continue to hear calls for higher taxes to keep the state’s pension systems afloat. Government workers and retirees are still trapped in a pension system that gives them no voice, no...
The national unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November, down from 7.3 percent a month earlier, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. The number of unemployed Americans fell by 365,000, while both the number of employed and the labor force grew over the month. The number...
Eight of Illinois’ 10 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, or MSAs, saw their unemployment rates rise or remain stagnant compared to October 2012, according to today’s combined September-October metropolitan area unemployment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Decatur and Danville regions are still suffering the highest unemployment in the state, with 12.3 percent and...
On Wednesday, thousands of Illinois residents got good news when Amazon announced that its Amazon Associates program – which allows bloggers and others with websites to make money when people click links on their sites to make purchases – would once again be open to them. Amazon dropped Illinoisans from the program in April 2011...
Illinois’ property tax rates have skyrocketed since 2010, according to new analysis done by the Tax Policy Center. The survey examined the 23 Illinois counties with populations exceeding 65,000. The average property tax rates as a percent of home value has soared from 1.93 percent in 2010 to 2.28 percent in 2012. This represents an 18 percent property...
Illinois’ pensions are among the worst-funded in the nation. The state has just 40 cents for every $1 that has been promised in benefits, and many government workers are concerned that they do not have choice and control over their own retirement. Illinois should not be forced to leave their retirement to the whims of...
Lawmakers met in Springfield on Tuesday for a special session on pension reform. After an early morning committee hearing, a gathering of each of the four legislative caucuses and several hours of lengthy floor debates, a pension bill passed the House and Senate, and now awaits Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature. The Illinois Policy Institute adamantly...
The Illinois General Assembly sent a pension bill to Gov. Pat Quinn. It is important to be clear about what this bill is and is not. Let’s start with what this bill is not. This bill is not the sweeping reform that Illinois has been waiting – fighting – for over the past few years....
Today U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven Rhodes ruled that “nothing distinguishes pension debt from any other debt” – and that Detroit’s pension debt can therefore be partially discharged in bankruptcy. What does that mean for Illinois, where huge unfunded pension liabilities threaten to render the state government and many local governments insolvent? If the courts...