A few days after the Fourth of July in 2018, Zay Manning was shot outside his neighborhood corner store in Bronzeville, the one he grew up going to for a bottle of lemonade and a bag of hot fries. He was 19, and loved helping his younger brother produce music — picking out beats, tweaking the sound one bar at a time. The one bullet that hit nearly killed him.

During his hospital stay, police officers and doctors told him about the Illinois’ Crime Victim Compensation Program, which uses state and federal dollars to reimburse victims of violent crime and their families for injury-related expenses. Manning applied, hoping to recoup some of the costs of his medical bills, and replace clothing destroyed and bloodied in the shooting. He found the program difficult and confusing while also navigating back-to-back hospital visits.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security is finally implementing a so-called work-share program — first authorized under a 2015 law — that could have saved anywhere from 43,600 to 123,900 jobs statewide during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research from the University of Illinois and Illinois Economic Policy Institute.

Work-share laws, also known as short-time compensation, allow companies to avoid mass layoffs by reducing workers’ hours so they’re still employed, while also allowing them to receive partial unemployment benefits. The concept is popular in European countries and more than two dozen other states have work-share programs.

According to a recent report, the state of Illinois will now allow student athletes to be paid for the use of their names, images, or likenesses, due to the efforts of ex-NFL and Northwestern University alum State Senator Napoleon Harris, III (D-Harvey).

Senate Bill 2338 was signed by Governor JB Pritzker and was effective as of Thursday, July 1, 2021.

According to a recent study, Illinois has the seventh largest minority wage gap in the country at 32.2%, and Chicago the fourth biggest for large metro areas in the United states at 40.3%.

However, the new report from Self Financial using data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, small Illinois cities like Springfield fare much better in minority wages.

After going more than two decades without a bond ratings upgrade, Illinois now has its second in a fortnight.

In a statement S&P Global Ratings said it has changed its take on Illinois debt from BBB- to BBB.  Both are considered “lower medium” investment grade, but the improvement will help since Illinois had been just one level above junk.