Indiana’s sharp rise in union members is due to its robust economic growth and increase in manufacturing jobs, while Illinois’ economy continues to lose factories and sees little growth in union members.

Illinois still has 144,000 fewer people working compared with the state’s pre-recession employment level, while surrounding states have all experienced employment growth.

Illinois saw a 0.23 percent increase in jobs in the first quarter of 2017, the third-worst growth rate in the region.

Illinois lost jobs across several industries including construction, manufacturing, and professional and business services. The only employment category to see significant growth was leisure and hospitality.

The industry giant’s move comes amid continued disinvestment in Illinois manufacturing.

There are 170,000 fewer people working in Illinois since before the Great Recession.

Workers’ compensation is a significant cost to Illinois taxpayers and drains scarce tax dollars from government coffers. A previous report in this series estimated the direct cost of workers’ compensation to state, county and municipal governments is $402 million in worker payouts per year.1 Building upon those findings, this report estimates that the total cost of workers’ compensation to...

In the last decade, Illinois’ economy and the economies of neighboring states have gone in opposite directions, with more people now working in Wisconsin and Indiana combined.