Illinois has had the nation’s highest black unemployment rate for 15 months in a row.

Metropolitan jobs data shows that from October 2015 – October 2016 the greater Chicago area is up +33,500 jobs while the rest of the state is down -2,700 jobs. Measured since before the Great Recession, from October 2007 – October 2016, the greater Chicago area is up 110,100 jobs while the rest of the state is down -42,700 jobs.

Calls for a minimum-wage hike nationwide and in Illinois are increasingly met with businesses’ use of technology to cut costs.

Since the beginning of 2015, Illinois has lost 14,100 manufacturing jobs.

New IDES data show that Illinois’ overall jobs growth was weak for October. While the greater Chicago area had tepid jobs growth over the year, the rest of the state lost jobs.

Metropolitan jobs data show that from September 2015 – September 2016 the greater Chicago area is up approximately 49,000 jobs, while the rest of the state is down 6,000 jobs.

Since the end of the recession, only 5 out of Illinois’ 13 metro areas – Carbondale-Marion, Chicago, Kankakee, Lake County-Kenosha County and Springfield – have recovered all the private-sector jobs lost from the Great Recession.

More than 6,000 Illinois manufacturing jobs disappeared in 2015.

Illinois Senate Bill 2982 epitomizes the kind of overregulation and burdensome licensing requirement Illinois should overhaul.

Illinois is one of only eight states that do not enforce food-stamp work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents. But reinstating work requirements would benefit Illinois food-stamp enrollees as well as state and local economies.