New COVID-19 cases have surged across Illinois, leading some state leaders to question why the only state east of the Mississippi with a universal mask mandate is seeing worse case rates than those without a mandate.
Illinois ranked 9th worst in the nation for offering students access to full-time in-person learning between September 2020 and April 2021 – less than any other Midwest state.
New data show Illinois lost private sector jobs amid a national economic expansion for the first year on record in 2019, a sign of the state’s deep structural problems in the run-up to the current market downturn.