Misguided Uber restrictions are back from the dead
Regulation doesn’t guarantee safety or quality; competition does.
4 ways to break out of Illinois’ pension trap
Causes, costs, how to set the state free
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7 of 10 Illinois metro areas are not recovering at all
Unemployment rates fell for most of Illinois’ metropolitan statistical areas in September, according to a press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, seven out of 10 Illinois metro areas are not showing any signs of an economic recovery when it comes to putting people back to work. Champaign, Chicago and Springfield are showing...
Three small changes for a better food-truck policy
It’s been two years since Chicago last updated its food-truck regulations to allow vendors to prepare food onboard. This was a significant improvement, but there are still some important changes the city can and should make to better respect food-truck owners’ rights and improve food options for residents across the city. Here are three modest...
Chicago grifts drivers with shorter yellow lights
The Chicago Tribune released findings from their ongoing investigation into the city’s red-light camera program on Thursday, revealing that with the city’s transition to a new camera vendor came a “subtle but significant lowering of the threshold for yellow light times.” The new vendor, Xerox State & Local Solutions, took over the program in 2013...
Illinois court rules state owes AFSCME workers
On Sept. 31, a panel of judges from an Illinois appellate court found that state employees were owed back pay under the contract between the state and Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME. This has set off celebrations at AFSCME, whose position all along was that the...
From first to worst: Illinois tops nation in legislative leader experience
Here’s an interesting argument against term limits: Government business is hard. That’s why we need politicians to hold office for a long time – so they can gain the experience they need to understand how to govern effectively. That’s effectively what Christopher Mooney, director of the institute of government and public affairs at the University...
America’s digital divide: Startups fly, storefronts struggle
This article was written by Satta Sarmah and featured in Fast Company on September 26, 2014. When 30-year-old Chicago native Sheyla Jarocz talks about how a brick and mortar storefront survives in the city’s North Center neighborhood, it sounds like a lonely mission. “I’ve tried to do promotions with nearby businesses,” said Jarocz, who opened Maash Boutique two years...
Body cameras for police a win for citizens, officers and taxpayers
What’s a low-cost way to improve police accountability in Illinois while saving taxpayer dollars? Some say body cameras for police officers. After the events in Ferguson, MO, several editorials have encouraged Illinois police officers to wear body cameras as a way to deter misconduct, and some departments have already signed on to the idea. But...
Federal numbers show Illinois remains last in post-recession recovery
A day after the Illinois Department of Employment Security reported that Illinois’ workforce shrank by 19,000 people in August, driving Illinois’ labor-force participation rate to a new 35-year low, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the severity of the state’s labor-force dropout crisis. The labor-force participation rate measures the share of Illinois’...
Good politics makes bad policy on Emanuel minimum-wage hike
On Sept. 3, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed an executive order requiring city contractors to immediately hike wages for the city workers they employ to $13 per hour from the current rate of $11.93 per hour. The current rate is already nearly 45 percent higher than the statewide minimum wage of $8.25 per hour. Illinoisans...
