Illinois is now down 138,200 total payroll jobs in the recession era, the second-worst recovery of any state.

Illinois is still seven years and 286,000 workers from recovery.

Illinois is last in the U.S. for putting people back to work.

Illinois’ “temporary” 2011 tax hike made the state’s slow recovery even worse. The tax hikes hit at the worst possible time – right after household incomes had collapsed during the recession. Since the tax hikes, the monthly growth in the number of people working in Illinois has slowed down by 60 percent, while the monthly...

More than one in five Illinois households are dependent on food stamps.

More than 500,000 Illinoisans are missing from the calculation of Illinois' unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate is a state’s most closely monitored indicator of economic health. The Illinois unemployment rate rose sharply through the Great Recession, and continues to fluctuate and trend downward as a result of both economic growth and a shrinking workforce. Illinois’ working-age adult population, from which the workforce is drawn, has grown by nearly...

The Illinois unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent from 6.7 percent in September, according to today’s economic release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of payroll jobs in Illinois increased by 19,300 in September, the sixth-best monthly increase in the last 10 years. Illinois’ workforce grew by 5,800 in September, the first month...

Illinois is ready to boom. That is the single most important fact about Illinois’ jobs climate and economy as a whole. However, Illinoisans have been held back by policy errors that have plagued the state for decades, especially since the Great Recession. Policy errors are causing tremendous pain for Illinoisans, but that pain can be...