State leaders issued a report touting Illinois’ abandonment of representational government in favor of executive fiat during the pandemic as effective. They failed to take responsibility for job recovery lagging the nation by a year and seeing public schools suffer.
This episode of The Policy Shop is by Bryce Hill, director of fiscal and economic research Illinois’ unemployment rate for Black workers last year was No. 2 in the U.S. Black Illinoisans faced average unemployment rates of 9.6% in 2023, compared to 5.5% for Black workers nationwide. That means Black Illinoisans were 75% more likely...
Illinois’ unemployment rate for April was near the highest in the U.S. Its recovery lags the nation by nearly a full percentage point.
The Illinois Senate approved legislation banning four food additives, sending it to the House. Manufacturers will need to sell an alternate recipe in Illinois if the bill becomes law.
A new bill in the Illinois General Assembly would ban employers from penalizing employees who do not show up to sponsored meetings. Employers could face $1,000 fines.
Illinois continued to lose population last year, with people leaving 75% of the communities in the state. But what about your town? Did it lose or gain, and by how much?
Chicago lost the most, but communities across Illinois lost population in 2023. Three-fourths of the cities and towns lost people.
Chicago lost 8,208 residents in 2023, the third-largest decline of any city in the nation. At this rate, the Second City will drop from No. 3 to No. 4 by 2035
Chicagoans could end up paying between $93K and $141K to cover the cost of substitutes for the roughly 650 Chicago Public School teachers and staff who lobbied lawmakers May 15 in Springfield.
Chicago Public Schools teachers traveled May 15 to Springfield for a “day of action” to ask for $1.1 billion in additional state funding. CPS already spends the second-most per student of Illinois’ 10 largest school districts.
This episode of The Policy Shop is by staff writer Patrick Andriesen Ninety Illinois communities have decided they could use some extra revenue, so they let red-light camera companies install devices that from 2008 through last year issued $1.56 billion in tickets. At least 527 red-light cameras were in operation by 2022 after the state...
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson took office on May 15, 2023. One year later, none of the $800 million in new taxes have passed. But expect a big taxpayer impact during his second year: he’s negotiating a contract with his former employer, the Chicago Teachers Union.