Illinois

Wisconsin competes for jobs while Illinois moves in the wrong direction

By Justin Hegy
12/20/2013
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently expressed interest in eliminating his state’s income tax. Walker realizes this move will give Wisconsin a competitive edge in competing for jobs and attracting new business. This new reform would add to important steps that state already has made, including labor reforms in late 2011 that helped the state’s budget...

TAGS: income tax, jobs, taxes, unemployment

Illinois has the highest sales taxes of its neighbors

By John Klingner
12/20/2013
Illinois has high sales taxes. As of January 2013, Illinois had the 12th-highest combined state and average local sales tax rate in the country at 8.13 percent – higher than all bordering states. Chicago’s combined sales tax rate of 9.75 percent tied with Los Angeles as the highest sales tax among major U.S. metropolitan areas...

TAGS: Chicago, sales tax

Illinois has the nation’s 2nd-highest property taxes

By Brian Costin
12/20/2013
Illinois’ property tax rates have skyrocketed since 2010. The average property tax rate as a percent of home value has soared from 1.93 percent in 2010 to 2.28 percent in 2012. This represents an 18 percent property tax rate increase in just two years. This rate spike is due to declining home values and local taxing bodies increasing property tax levies....

TAGS: property taxes, taxes

Don’t buy mom Illinois bonds for Christmas

12/19/2013
Would you invest your mother’s money in municipal bonds? In a recent interview on Fox Business News, host Gerri Willis asked me that very question. It didn’t take me long to say I’d certainly do my homework first. Based on the growing number of city bankruptcies from Alabama to Rhode Island to California, it’s clear to me...

Thousands of Illinoisans have to reapply for ObamaCare

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
12/19/2013
If navigating the ObamaCare website or filling out the applications weren’t challenging enough, some in Illinois and around the country are facing yet another challenge. USA Today reports that some people are being mistakenly enrolled into Medicaid. Not only are individuals improperly enrolled in Medicaid faced with the problem of canceling that enrollment, but they...

TAGS: ACA: Affordable Care Act, Illinois Medicaid Redetermination Project, Medicaid

Illinois’ largest cities show wide disparity in online transparency, Chicago fails

By Brian Costin
12/19/2013
A new report looking at the state’s 25 largest municipalities shows a wide disparity in citizens’ access to basic government information online from community to community. In places such as Evanston, Skokie and Orland Park, citizens have excellent access to basic financial and participatory information online, but the same isn’t true in many other areas....

TAGS: good government, transparency

Bipartisan success 2013

By Matt Paprocki, Jane McEnaney
12/19/2013
The Illinois Policy Institute introduced the only comprehensive pension reform plan during the 2013 legislative session. The Institute’s pension solution is the first plan that shifts Illinois workers out of the state’s broke defined benefit system and into a 401(k)-style plan, giving workers control and the pension system solvency. The introduction of this legislation has...

ADM relocates to Chicago – without state tax incentives

By Michael Lucci
12/19/2013
Archer Daniels Midland, an Illinois-based agribusiness giant, announced today that it will move the company’s global headquarters from Decatur, Ill., to Chicago, despite a tax incentive bill worth $30 million to ADM being stalled in the Illinois General Assembly. The decision keeps 60 to 75 executive-level jobs in Illinois, and comes a week after Office...

TAGS: Archer Daniels Midland, Chicago, cronyism, taxes

After ‘backroom deal,’ Illinois to hire 500 new government workers to replace private Medicaid scrub contractor

By Hilary Gowins
12/18/2013
Republican state Sens. Dale Righter and Patti Bellock accused the Quinn administration of cutting a “backroom deal” with the largest state employee union that will dismantle efforts to crack down on Medicaid fraud, according to the State Journal-Register. In 2012, the state hired a private vendor to help rein in out-of-control costs associated with Illinois’...

TAGS: AFSCME: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Maximus, Medicaid

Load More

Fighting poverty with employment: Chicago block clubs

Leaders of these organizations on the South and West sides connect residents to jobs and engage youth to build safer neighborhoods.

View Report

Report Archive

Diana Graham

Process for unionizing non-state workers raises red flags

By Paul Kersey
06/19/2014

CBS Chicago: Illinois’ highest-paid superintendent receives $400K per year to oversee 1,200 students

By Ted Dabrowski
05/02/2016