Until the mid-1900s, people from across the world stampeded into Illinois in search of opportunity. Workers from rural America came to build Pullman cars, erect skyscrapers and fill factories. Immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in search of economic freedom. And laborers left the agrarian South to participate in America’s industrialization. Illinois’ population doubled from 1900...

It didn’t take long for Illinois’ spending machine to cram more debt down taxpayers’ throats. Only two months after signing a pension bill, Gov. Pat Quinn is borrowing yet another $1 billion to fund state construction projects. This will be the first large borrowing for Illinois since it passed Senate Bill 1, a pension fix...

JOBS AND GROWTH Illinois has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation  More than 1 million Illinoisans are unemployed or underemployed Illinois is projected to be dead last in jobs growth in 2014 78,713 Illinoisans have given up and left the workforce since Dec. 2012 Illinois paid out $266M in improper unemployment insurance payments Illinois...

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...