April data put the state’s policy pain points on display.

Illinois is dead last of all 50 states in recovering from the Great Recession – and two economic surveys prepared each month by the Illinois Department of Employment Security, or IDES, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics prove it. The BLS and IDES surveys track employment and jobs growth in Illinois: both household surveys...

For the third straight month, Illinois' unemployment rate climbed. More than 9.1 percent of Illinoisans are now unemployed, a full percentage point higher than the national average of 8.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.