The Great Recession knocked 500,000 Illinoisans out of work from January 2008 to November 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey. And since then, only 200,000 Illinoisans have gone back to work. This stands as one of the country’s slowest recoveries. As a result, Illinois has 300,000 fewer people working today than...

Denial— a failure to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into your consciousness, used as a defense mechanism. Illinois’ Senate Democrats launched a website called “I Like Illinois.” The explicit purpose of the site, according to their tweets, is to “counter negativity of Illinois Policy Institute.” This purpose is ironic, given...

The U.S. hit a major milestone in September. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics household survey, the number of Americans working has finally surpassed pre-recession levels. In addition, the national jobless rate fell to 5.9 percent to 6.1 percent. The number of Illinoisans working, however, is far from recovery. There are now 220,000 more...

Though unemployment rates fell in August for Illinois’ major metropolitan areas, 19,000 workers dropped out of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because of these dropouts, the workforce shrank in every metropolitan statistical area, or MSA, except Champaign-Urbana. Workforce dropouts drive down the unemployment rate because unemployed workers who leave the workforce...