Michael Jordan’s $200K property tax bill can’t cover Highland Park’s No. 1 pensioner
Michael Jordan’s $200K property tax bill can’t cover Highland Park’s No. 1 pensioner
Michael Jordan may have paid $178,900 in property taxes on his Highland Park home in 2012. But his property taxes aren’t even enough to cover the annual pension of Highland Park’s highest-compensated retired Teachers’ Retirement System member. Linda Hanson, 66, is a former Highland Park Township High School District 113 superintendent who has been retired...
By Hilary Gowins
Illinois unemployment rate falls to 8.7%, continues to lag behind national average
Illinois unemployment rate falls to 8.7%, continues to lag behind national average
Illinois’ unemployment rate fell to 8.7 percent in November from 8.9 percent a month prior, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Illinois still has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind only Nevada, Rhode Island and Michigan. The state gained 9,400 payroll jobs over the month, while the number of unemployed Illinoisans...
By John Klingner
Banning the unknown – Chicago aldermen’s Styrofoam ban is just plain wrong
Banning the unknown – Chicago aldermen’s Styrofoam ban is just plain wrong
You’re not using Styrofoam. Not if you’re eating takeout, drinking a soda or chugging a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. These disposable food and beverage containers are made from polystyrene. Not Styrofoam. But the public has long confused these two products. (Disclaimer: my last post did not accurately represent Styrofoam, either.) Dow Chemical, the company that produces...
By Hilary Gowins
Quinn’s minimum wage hike proposal would hurt inexperienced workers
Quinn’s minimum wage hike proposal would hurt inexperienced workers
Gov. Pat Quinn is pitching a plan that would effectively cut out young and inexperienced labor from the work force, and further exacerbate youth unemployment in the state. The governor revealed in a Wednesday press conference that he is seeking to raise the minimum wage from $8.25 to $10, lifting the barrier to entry for...
By Michael Lucci
Wisconsin competes for jobs while Illinois moves in the wrong direction
Wisconsin competes for jobs while Illinois moves in the wrong direction
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently expressed interest in eliminating his state’s income tax. Walker realizes this move will give Wisconsin a competitive edge in competing for jobs and attracting new business. This new reform would add to important steps that state already has made, including labor reforms in late 2011 that helped the state’s budget...
By Justin Hegy
Chicago has the nation’s highest travel taxes
Chicago has the nation’s highest travel taxes
Thanks to Chicago’s high travel taxes, spending one night in the city is more expensive than all other top 50 travel destinations in the nation. For example, it is 81 percent more expensive to stay one night in Chicago than it is to stay one night in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Businesses take such numbers into...
By John Klingner
Illinois has the highest sales taxes of its neighbors
Illinois has the highest sales taxes of its neighbors
Illinois has high sales taxes. As of January 2013, Illinois had the 12th-highest combined state and average local sales tax rate in the country at 8.13 percent – higher than all bordering states. Chicago’s combined sales tax rate of 9.75 percent tied with Los Angeles as the highest sales tax among major U.S. metropolitan areas...
By John Klingner
Illinois has the nation’s 2nd-highest property taxes
Illinois has the nation’s 2nd-highest property taxes
Illinois’ property tax rates have skyrocketed since 2010. The average property tax rate 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 tax rate increase in just two years. This rate spike is due to declining home values and local taxing bodies increasing property tax levies....
By Brian Costin
If you like your crummy health insurance plan, you can’t keep it — but now you can buy ours!
If you like your crummy health insurance plan, you can’t keep it — but now you can buy ours!
To paraphrase political humorist P.J. O’Rourke, “Giving the Obama administration control over one-sixth of the economy is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” Last night provided yet another example of ObamaCare rollout chaos. The Obama administration announced that people who had their plans canceled by ObamaCare regulations (because they were inferior plans,...
By Naomi Lopez Bauman
Don’t buy mom Illinois bonds for Christmas
Don’t buy mom Illinois bonds for Christmas
Would you invest your mother’s money in municipal bonds? In a recent interview on Fox Business News, host Gerri Willis asked me that very question. It didn’t take me long to say I’d certainly do my homework first. Based on the growing number of city bankruptcies from Alabama to Rhode Island to California, it’s clear to me...
Thousands of Illinoisans have to reapply for ObamaCare
Thousands of Illinoisans have to reapply for ObamaCare
If navigating the ObamaCare website or filling out the applications weren’t challenging enough, some in Illinois and around the country are facing yet another challenge. USA Today reports that some people are being mistakenly enrolled into Medicaid. Not only are individuals improperly enrolled in Medicaid faced with the problem of canceling that enrollment, but they...
By Naomi Lopez Bauman
Illinois’ largest cities show wide disparity in online transparency, Chicago fails
Illinois’ largest cities show wide disparity in online transparency, Chicago fails
A new report looking at the state’s 25 largest municipalities shows a wide disparity in citizens’ access to basic government information online from community to community. In places such as Evanston, Skokie and Orland Park, citizens have excellent access to basic financial and participatory information online, but the same isn’t true in many other areas....
By Brian Costin
Bipartisan success 2013
Bipartisan success 2013
The Illinois Policy Institute introduced the only comprehensive pension reform plan during the 2013 legislative session. The Institute’s pension solution is the first plan that shifts Illinois workers out of the state’s broke defined benefit system and into a 401(k)-style plan, giving workers control and the pension system solvency. The introduction of this legislation has...
By Matt Paprocki, Jane McEnaney
ADM relocates to Chicago – without state tax incentives
ADM relocates to Chicago – without state tax incentives
Archer Daniels Midland, an Illinois-based agribusiness giant, announced today that it will move the company’s global headquarters from Decatur, Ill., to Chicago, despite a tax incentive bill worth $30 million to ADM being stalled in the Illinois General Assembly. The decision keeps 60 to 75 executive-level jobs in Illinois, and comes a week after Office...
By Michael Lucci