Opponents of pension reform try to downplay Illinois’ $100 billion in official pension debt because it’s “not due at one point in time.” They like to compare the pension debt to a “mortgage,” which is paid over 30 years. But this argument is misleading, and here’s why: Illinois isn’t on the hook for just $100...
On August 27, the Illinois Policy Institute awarded the united city of Yorkville a Sunshine Award for its efforts in online transparency. Yorkville has adopted many of the recommendations outlined in the Institute’s10-Point Transparency Checklist and scored 84.9 points out of a possible 100 earlier this year. Yorkville has created a dedicated page on its website...
The Chicago Tribune ran a front-page story lamenting Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s failure to eliminate food deserts in Chicago. A food desert is an area in which residents allegedly lack easy access to supermarkets that offer fresh produce. The exact definition varies depending on who you ask and when – the city used to consider areas without a...
Unions exist to give workers greater leverage in negotiating over compensation and working conditions, and to give them some protection from unfair treatment at the hands of management. If union officials are doing their jobs well, workers should be receiving better wages and benefits, and should be more secure in their jobs. But that’s not...
Should a city government be allowed to stop someone from starting a business just to protect established companies from competition? Should a city official be allowed to deny someone a license to start a business just because the official doesn’t consider the new business “desirable”? Until this week, the city of Bloomington had a law...
Smokers should be careful not to flick too many cigarette butts out of their windows on their commute – starting next year, it could land them in prison for one to three years. The punishment sounds too outrageous to believe, but it’s true. Under a new Illinois law, someone who tosses a cigarette on the...
Does giving workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union make a difference? A new report from the Mackinac Center – our sister think tank in Michigan – says yes, it does. Ball State University professor Michael Hicks teamed up with Mackinac’s Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive to produce a sophisticated analysis of employment, income...
The media is swirling with rumors that the Obama administration is considering subsidizing health premiums for Big Labor members who already have insurance – using funds intended for uninsured, low-income Americans. If true, this will be yet another example of the Obama administration giving preferential treatment to special interests while subjugating individual Americans to the high costs and destructive effects of...
With college football starting up on this Labor Day weekend, it’s the perfect time for a Top 25 list of the most highest-compensated government union officials in Illinois. Unlike the football polls, there’s no argument over who’s No. 1; it’s all pretty cut-and-dried. The big question is: What exactly have they done to earn these...
Almost all metropolitan areas across Illinois saw an increase in their unemployment rate in July. According to the latest seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, eight of Illinois’ 10 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, or MSAs, saw their unemployment rates increase. The only region to experience a drop was Chicago, while the...
On the same day he gave a speech celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s life on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder instructed the Justice Department to file a motion to prevent 34 predominantly black school districts in Louisiana from allowing families to utilize the state’s voucher program. And the Justice Department’s reasoning...
If Illinoisans needed any more proof that the state’s defined benefit pension systems are unmanageable and dysfunctional, they got it on Aug. 26. Dick Ingram, head of the Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, informed Illinois’ pension conference committee that TRS’s actuaries made a mistake in calculating the expected savings of House Speaker Mike Madigan’s proposed pension...
In a recent interview to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, President Barack Obama managed to plug the ObamaCare program by encouraging people to sign up for coverage on a government website. Few can disagree with the goal of affordable health care coverage, especially for the medically needy and poor. While...
In January, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, or HFS, began a new project verifying eligibility for Illinois’ 2.7 million Medicaid enrollees. For years, state workers had failed to take adequate steps to ensure the people receiving Medicaid benefits were actually eligible for the program. As an Auditor General report noted, state workers...