In what’s likely to be a chain of credit downgrades for some of Chicago’s sister governments, Moody’s Investors Services cut the city of Chicago’s credit rating to Baa1 from A3. That downgrade follows the rare triple-notch downgrade the city received last year from Moody’s as a result of the city’s growing and out-of-control pension debt. Excluding Detroit,...

The same group that rates Illinois’ state bonds as the worst in the nation recently reported that Illinois’ pension shortfall jumped by $53 billion in fiscal year 2012. Moody’s Investors Service said the funding shortfall of the state’s five pension systems – covering state workers, university employees, judges, legislators and teachers outside Chicago – now...

Until the mid-1900s, people from across the world stampeded into Illinois in search of opportunity. Workers from rural America came to build Pullman cars, erect skyscrapers and fill factories. Immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in search of economic freedom. And laborers left the agrarian South to participate in America’s industrialization. Illinois’ population doubled from 1900...