Illinois recorded the second-worst growth in gross domestic product of any state in the Midwest, according to this week’s release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Illinois economy grew by just 0.9 percent in 2013. Only Missouri grew slower, at a sluggish 0.8 percent. The state’s growth ranks near the bottom nationally as well....

When Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign spokesperson, Brooke Anderson, joined host Mike Flannery on Fox Chicago on June 8, she claimed: “Unemployment is at its lowest point in more than five years. More people are working in Illinois today than when the governor took office.” But that’s simply not true. While the unemployment rate in Illinois...

Illinois politicians want to make things worse for the many Chicagoans struggling to find jobs and make ends meet. They’re calling for state, county and local tax hikes on the city that already has one of the worst metro area unemployment rates in the nation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Gov. Pat...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranked the regulatory environment in 10 major U.S. cities, and the results aren’t pretty for Chicago. One writer described starting a professional services business in Chicago as a “dystopian nightmare.” Professional and business services make up 780,000 payroll jobs in the Chicago metropolitan area, a major part of current employment...

Illinois lost 7,800 private-sector jobs in April, and the state jobless rate fell to 7.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Illinois remains the worst in the Midwest and third-worst nationally for joblessness. Illinois’ private-sector jobs loss came against a gain of 1,000 government jobs, leaving the state with a net loss of...

Illinois’ 2011 income tax hike helped put the brakes on the state’s private-sector jobs recovery. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois’ monthly job creation has slowed down since the 2011 tax hike. Meanwhile, the rest of the country has accelerated its jobs growth. The Great Recession began in January 2008, and...

CEOs of major U.S. corporations went on record in Chief Executive Magazine’s “2014 Best and Worst States for Business.” Business leaders pulled no punches in their description of Illinois, going so far as to compare doing business in Illinois to doing business in a third-world country. The publication ranked Illinois at the bottom of the...