This edition of The Policy Shop is written by Adam Schuster, vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute. The numbers don’t lie. Our recent polling shows 61% of Illinois voters want pension reform. A big factor? Taxpayers contribute 84 cents of every dollar public pensioners receive in retirement. Our elected leaders in Illinois seem...
Illinois is one of the states with the most to gain from the continued national jobs recovery, but could be hit harder than other states by a recession.
A new report shows Illinois is likely to face financial challenges when the federal stimulus money propping up its current budget runs out. That reality is very different than the Pritzker campaign claims about fiscal responsibility.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith faces his 12th contempt of court order of 2022. In the latest, the judge ruled Smith failed to place a 15-year-old girl in proper housing for 170 days, leaving her in a mental hospital.
State workers are out enforcing Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mandate that all gas pumps carry a sign noting his delay in the next automatic gas tax hike. The Illinois Fuel and Retail Association is in state court fighting the mandate and $500-a-day fines.
Despite a full year of job gains, all Illinois metropolitan areas are missing jobs since the pandemic began and the recovery stalled. While May brought job gains statewide, only eight metro areas saw gains while seven saw losses.
Illinois’ employment recovery continued in May, but the state is still missing nearly one in six jobs lost during the pandemic.
Delegates to the National Education Association’s annual meeting again called for mask and vaccine mandates, as well as remote learning. On Nov. 8 voters will decide whether to grant Illinois union bosses more power to set school policy.
Illinois’ largest state worker union has a long history of demanding higher taxes. Now AFSCME is funding a state constitutional amendment campaign that will hike property taxes statewide.
U.S. Steel is cutting up to 1,000 jobs and selling parts of its Granite City plant. The move comes as Madison County employment remains down over 5,600 jobs since the pandemic.
"Inflation has definitely been our biggest challenge for the last 18 months or so. Prices have been going up on everything."
Teachers unions tout support for a constitutional amendment that threatens to raise property taxes over $2,149. Illinoisans already pay the nation’s second-highest property taxes.