Illinois

Number of Illinois union bosses earning six-figure salaries continues to grow

By Paul Kersey
10/16/2013
In Big Labor mythology, union leaders are gritty, idealistic working class people standing up to the arrogant and wealthy. In reality, running a union is big business, and a union gig can mean making a pretty good living. Illinois teachers unions can be particularly generous with compensation. In “The Labor Book,” we looked at government...

TAGS: AFSCME: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, IFT: Illinois Federation of Teachers, SEIU: Service Employees International Union

Illinois’ pension system lacks transparency

By Paul Kersey
10/16/2013
THE PROBLEM The story of Illinois pensions over the last 20 years is full of reforms that were supposed to put the five state-run government pension systems on sound footing, but failed once they were implemented. Despite repeated attempts at a solution, the state’s official pension debt has jumped to nearly five times what it was in 1995. Taxpayers and...

TAGS: 401(k), COGFA: Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, COLA: cost of living adjustment, IDOI: Illinois Department of Insurance, ILGA: Illinois General Assembly, Jim Edgar, market discount rates, pensions, retirement age

ObamaCare: Rate shock in Illinois and across the nation

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
10/16/2013
One of the harsh realities of ObamaCare is that the insurance plans available under the president’s sweeping law are more expensive than insurance that is currently available. For example, a 27-year-old man living in Chicago would pay $125 per month for the lowest-cost “bronze” plan under ObamaCare. If that individual had an income of $25,000,...

TAGS: ACA: Affordable Care Act, Get Covered Illinois

Democrats receive overwhelming majority of Illinois government union donations

By Paul Kersey
10/16/2013
In recent months, unions that had been sharply critical about many aspects of ObamaCare have been extremely quiet since Republicans in Congress have made a concerted – and very controversial – attempt to slow down implementation of the law. The federal government shutdown could have presented a creative union lobbyist with a great opening to...

TAGS: AFL-CIO, AFSCME: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, IFT: Illinois Federation of Teachers, SEIU: Service Employees International Union

Progressive tax hike proposal attacks Illinois’ working and middle classes

By Benjamin VanMetre
10/15/2013
State Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-Urbana, recently revealed a new progressive tax proposal with rates that hit Illinois’ middle and working classes hard. Under current Illinois law, the individual income tax rate will be 3.75 percent in 2015. Under Jakobsson’s new plan, however, a higher 4 percent rate kicks in for people earning just $18,000. That...

TAGS: income tax, Naomi Jakobsson, progressive income tax

Pension reform: Time to means test COLAs

By Ted Dabrowski
10/15/2013
Illinois’ pension conference committee is once again rumored to be nearing a “fix” for the state’s pension mess. But if the pension conference committee is serious about saving the pensions of state retirees and workers who have dedicated their careers to public work, they will put an end to cost-of-living-adjustments, or COLAs, for government retirees...

TAGS: COLA: cost of living adjustment, GARS: General Assembly Retirement System, JRS: Judges’ Retirement System, SERS: State Employee Retirement System, SURS: State Universities Retirement System, TRS: Teachers’ Retirement System

ObamaCare: Who is eligible for coverage?

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
10/14/2013
Under the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare, individuals are required to have health insurance coverage by Jan. 1, 2014, or pay a fine. This provision of the law is called the individual mandate. There are a number of ways that people can obtain coverage under ObamaCare if they do not currently get...

TAGS: Medicaid

More than 73 percent of Illinois Medicaid cases reviewed last week had eligibility errors

By Jonathan Ingram
10/12/2013
In January, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, or HFS, began a new project verifying eligibility for Illinois’ 2.7 million Medicaid enrollees. For years, state workers had failed to take adequate steps to ensure the people receiving Medicaid benefits were actually eligible for the program. As an Auditor General report noted, state workers failed to...

TAGS: AFSCME: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, HFS: Healthcare and Family Services, Medicaid

Disappearance of Illinois’ manufacturing sector

By Justin Hegy
10/10/2013
It’s hard not to notice the disappearance of Illinois’ manufacturing sector. Anyone driving through the outskirts of Peoria can witness the closed buildings and half-abandoned neighborhoods. Cities all across Illinois have seen a similar story unfold. Illinois’ manufacturing base has been in decline, losing over 130,000 manufacturing jobs in the past decade. Even during the...

TAGS: progressive income tax

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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.

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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