Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner, Wirepoints News
'How much do we hate jobs in this state?' The fight over Illinois' unemployment insurance debt will hit job creators
There’s a battle brewing in the Illinois Senate over how much of the state’s remaining $3.5 billion in federal COVID aid should be used to repay the state’s $4.5 billion in unemployment debts. Illinois’ Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, normally financed by taxes on state businesses, was wiped out after hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans filed unemployment claims as a result of the pandemic lockdowns. The federal government loaned Illinois the $4.5 billion so the state could issue unemployment checks.
More double-dipping Illinois school superintendents
Illinois school district superintendents keep finding ways to retire with generous Illinois pensions while continuing to get salaries to boot.
As many as 160,000 fewer workers: Illinois' poor jobs record continues during COVID
Illinois’ taxes, corruption, unfriendly business environment and high labor costs continue to take a toll on the state’s economic recovery. And job prospects for many Illinoisans, particularly in the leisure and hospitality industry, have been made even worse by the state’s COVID policies, some of the nation’s strictest.
Omicron shows Illinois masks and mandates aren't working: A comparison of Illinois versus its neighbors
A comparison of mask-mandated Illinois to its mandate-less neighbors during Omicron shows that Illinois’ restrictions have failed to provide any benefit so far. In fact, a review of publicly-available CDC data shows Illinois’ per capita COVID cases increased more rapidly than all its neighbors, while the state’s deaths per capita are now higher than all of its neighbors except Indiana.
Here's what real voter suppression looks like in Illinois
If activists and lawmakers really cared about democracy, they’d drop their unfounded claims of “voter suppression” and instead end what really depresses voter turnout: off-cycle municipal elections.
Six sources of Chicago Teachers Union power
The Chicago Teachers Union has walked out on Chicago’s kids once again. It’s the fifth time in the last ten years.
Illinois pension shortfall surpasses $500 billion, average debt burden now $110,000 per household
Illinois just reached an alarming milestone: each Illinois household is now on the hook for, on average, $110,000 in government-worker retirement debts. That figure is the result of dividing Illinois’ $530 billion in state and local retirement shortfalls among the state’s 4.9 million households. In 2019, the burden was $90,000 per household.
Gov. Pritzker can't take credit for Illinois' improved budget projections when it's the feds that bailed the state out
Gov. J.B. Pritzker may be celebrating the lower deficits his budget office just projected for the next five years, but Illinois’ latest “improvements” owe little to what he and the General Assembly have done since the governor took office. To the contrary, most of Pritzker’s recent actions have only served to increase the burden on ordinary Illinoisans going forward. We detail those actions later in this piece.
Jump in inflation bails out Illinois politicians, punishes ordinary residents
There’s a price tag attached to the unprecedented federal money lavished on states under the pretext of COVID relief, which is over $9 trillion and growing. It’s in addition to higher federal taxes that will be needed to pay for it. It’s inflation, which is finally getting the attention it deserves.
The Delta variant and its limited impact on Illinois children
Press reports of the Delta virus’ impact on children across the country have been alarming since July, when cases and hospital admissions jumped significantly after a bottoming out in June. Most of the attention has fallen on Florida and other southern states, but there have been concerning stories in Illinois, too.
Politicians’ next pension 'fix': Gambling with your money
Imagine a husband going to his wife with a grand scheme to get his family out of the financial trouble they’re in. Out of control spending and too much debt has made a mess of their lives and his wife has been asking him for years to scale down spending and cut back excesses. Unfortunately, that’s never happened and now things are desperate.
$144 billion and counting: New report shows Illinois pension debts up again
Illinois lawmakers continue to ignore pension reform so, not surprisingly, Illinoisans are on the hook for billions more in pension debts.
Illinoisans would pay 40% less in property taxes if the state spent at levels where students perform better: Florida
Illinois lawmakers have a lot of explaining to do regarding K-12 education spending and their continuous demands for billions more in state funding.
Don’t fall for Pritzker administration’s misleading comments on Illinois’ population losses
A recent tweet by Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s press secretary shows the administration either doesn’t understand the state’s out-migration problem or it’s deliberately attempting to mislead Illinoisans. Jordan Abudayyeh’s dismissive response to a Fox 32 tweet tries to shoot down the argument that Illinois has a people-loss problem.
Every Illinois school parent, teacher should know these COVID-19 facts
Many Illinois school districts are shutting down in-class learning due to the jump in COVID cases, but another set of numbers argue that schools should stay open – and in fact, open even more.
Illinois’ own COVID-19 data reveals the state’s coronavirus policy is upside down – Wirepoints
A Wirepoints review of last month’s COVID-19 data reveals just how flawed Illinois’ response to the coronavirus continues to be. The recent spike in cases has the government shutting down large parts of the state again in a brute-force approach, when its efforts should, instead, be hyper-focused on the elderly and opening up the economy for everyone else.
Third domino falls: Illinois Comptroller set to confiscate East St. Louis revenues to pay for city’s firefighter pensions
The East St. Louis’ firefighter pension fund has demanded that Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza intercept more than $2.2 million of East St. Louis city revenues so they could be diverted to the pension fund.
Six facts Pritzker can’t ignore when negotiating AFSCME contract
Illinois Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker says one of his first legislative priorities is to focus on things that will “lift up the standard of living” for Illinoisans by “putting dollars back in their pockets.”