Amazon’s new Joliet, Ill., facilities will bring needed jobs to the state, but special tax deals are not the way to improve Illinois’ sluggish jobs climate.
Given AFSCME’s and the Rauner administration’s disagreement on core contract issues – such as wage freezes and merit pay – and the likely appeal of any impasse decision reached by the administrative law judge, a final determination on whether AFSCME and the Rauner administration have reached impasse will probably not come until well into the summer – or beyond.
The mayor’s plan to construct the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art includes more of the same bad policies that got Chicago into its fiscal crisis: a bid to borrow $1.2 billion and hike taxes on residents.
The Illinois attorney general – House Speaker Mike Madigan’s daughter – could play a major role in whether state lawmakers will pass a budget Illinoisans can afford.
In an effort to shore up pension debt, Chicago officials in 2014 adopted a pension-reform package that included raising the telephone tax. Though the Illinois Supreme Court struck down these changes, the tax hike remains.
The Illinois Supreme Court’s overturning of Chicago’s modest pension reform means Chicago faces higher pension contributions, rapidly growing pension debt and an increased risk of total insolvency for its pension funds.
A new Illinois Policy Institute analysis finds that adults with no spouse and living with children are most likely to live below the poverty line. Education matters just as much.