Chicago Election Board Chair Marisel Hernandez recently included an unusual warm weather addendum to her regular pre-election pitch encouraging voters to cast ballots in the upcoming Illinois primary: Do so before you leave town.

“If you’re planning on a summer vacation in the coming weeks, choose to vote by mail,” she said.

WalletHub is reporting Illinois is the 6th worst state when it comes time to the unemployment rate recovery. The number of unemployed people in Illinois topped 297,000 in the month of May.

The U.S. unemployment rate is at 3.6%, just slightly higher than it was pre-pandemic. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports in Illinois, the unemployment rate is 4.6%. Express Employment Professionals, a local recruiting agency says despite some of the hiring challenges nationwide, their staff has doubled recently and they’ve also been able to maintain a 90% fill rate, getting new hires in the door.

A state audit released Thursday found nearly $2 billion in federal money intended to help unemployed Illinoisans during the pandemic was lost to fraudulent claims in Illinois.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security blamed “insufficient and flawed federal guidance” and a lack of controls on a hastily constructed program put together by the Trump administration.