-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
After years of credit downgrades that pushed Chicago Public Schools’ rating to B3, deep into junk territory, the district finally got a one-notch upgrade to B2 from Moody’s. Expect Mayor Rahm Emanuel to sell that as good news on the campaign trail, even if a B2 rating is still five notches into junk.
The Janus decision in June was good news for the litigants in the 2014 Harris case, whose claim for damages has been pending under the new title Riffey v Rauner. The day after the high court decided Janus, it sent Riffey to the lower court for reconsideration “in light of Janus.” Riffey seeks to recover $32 million in pre-Harris payments to a single Service Employees International Union local in Illinois. Five days later, PPE workers in Washington state filed a lawsuit, Schumacher v. Inslee, seeking refunds from another SEIU local. A third blow to PPE unions came July 12. The
Seven of 10 able-bodied recipients of taxpayer-funded healthcare in Illinois say they don’t have jobs. “They’re taking dollars out of those state budgets that could go to people who don’t have the opportunity to work,” said Victoria Eardley, a research fellow with FGA and co-author of the study. “And now we find out that they’re not working.”
Oprah Winfrey, a close friend of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle, and one of the most successful entertainment executives in the world, has donated at least $1 million to the Obama Foundation, according to records posted on Monday. The donation was expected, given her relationship with the Obamas, her historic role in the Obama election in 2008, their Chicago connections and her interest in the Obama Presidential Center, with its centerpiece museum.
Comment: Huge implications if the plaintiffs win this, and they sure appear to be right on the facts.
The new analysis, produced by the Metropolitan Planning Council, found that the Loop, the Near North Side and the Near West Side added 65,000 new jobs between the start of 2010 and the end of 2015, with the number of jobs in those three areas totaling 715,000 as of 2015.
Yet the number of those jobs held by residents who live in majority-black communities on the South and West sides dropped. During the five-year period, the number of employees working downtown who were living in those communities shrunk by nearly 1,500. Residents of these communities made up only 10.6 percent
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