The Daily Caller reports: Reports indicate President Obama will soon confirm what many of us have long suspected, that Congress wants and will soon have a waiver from Obamacare. Read more…
Mercer County Treasurer Mike Bertelsen has been charged with stealing $13,000 from a county 911 fund. As reported by a local NBC affiliate: The County Treasurer in Mercer County, Illinois has been arrested. Michael Bertelsen, 53, faces a charge of felony theft. On the afternoon of July 31st, the Mercer County Sheriff made the arrest and...
This week, fast-food workers, retail employees and others have been protesting at McDonald’s restaurants and other fast-food restaurants and chain stores in Chicago and cities across the country. The protesters, who are being egged on and funded by the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, and other union-affiliated groups, are demanding a $15-an-hour wage; a huge...
Illinois lawmakers stopped getting paid on Thursday. So did Gov. Pat Quinn, who on July 10 used his line-item veto power to halt lawmaker pay until the General Assembly reaches an agreement on pension reform. But a Rantoul-based credit union has come to their aid, offering interest-free loans to state legislators. According to the State Journal-Register,...
At the end of July, about 400 Illinois workers were notified that they might be losing their jobs in the next few weeks. Filings with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity highlighted this number, which includes cuts at major companies throughout the state. According to the Chicago Tribune: Lake Forest-based Grainger Inc. said it...
About a year ago, the city of Chicago released its 2012 Annual Financial Analysis. Back then I noted that many of the city’s challenges, especially high employee costs and growing pension debt, were aggravated by a heavily unionized workforce. With a new year comes newer, more disturbing financial figures – and the same old union problem...
This week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office issued a press release boasting of steps the city has taken to make it easier and faster for small businesses to get city licenses. According to the statement, visitors to the city’s Small Business Center can now take advantage of an express lane, a self-service station and additional “customer service”...
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today that the national unemployment rate dropped to 7.4 percent in July from 7.6 percent in June. The number of unemployed persons dropped by 263,000 to 11.5 million. Over the course of the year, unemployment and the unemployment rate are down by 1.2 million and 0.8 percentage points,...
Chicago officials are reviewing the state of the city’s finances in preparation for a months-long budgeting process – and the numbers aren’t pretty. The city of Chicago released today its 2013 Annual Financial Analysis. As this document reveals, growing debt payments and unfunded pension liabilities continue to push the city’s budget into the red. As this...
Illinois can’t pay its bills. Lawmakers continue to eat away at the Illinois family budget with higher taxes. And the state refuses to stop ballooning pension payments from crowding out core government services. Yet Gov. Pat Quinn announced that Illinois will invest $54.8 million 27 private colleges and universities in the Chicago area. Some of this spending...
Chicago officials are reviewing the state of the city’s finances in preparation for a months-long budgeting process – and the numbers aren’t pretty. The city of Chicago released today its 2013 Annual Financial Analysis. As this document reveals, growing debt payments and unfunded pension liabilities continue to push the city’s budget into the red. As this...
Not all workers view technological innovation the same way. Earlier this week, the Tech Crunch blog, which covers trends in information technology businesses, examined how different types of workers view technological innovation. New technology has always had the ability to upend the workplace, and tech workers themselves are not immune. But tech workers are much more...
by Jonathan Ingram Illinois law has long required that the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, or HFS, perform annual eligibility checks to ensure that those receiving Medicaid benefits were actually eligible for the program. After years of HFS failing to adequately perform these annual eligibility checks, lawmakers enacted 305 ILCS 5/11-5.2, which allowed...
by John Klingner President Barack Obama visited to Galesburg last week to give a speech in which he said he would refocus on jobs and the economy. That’s little comfort for the unemployed workers in cities across Illinois. The economic policies the president wishes to enact at the federal level have been at work for...