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The share of Illinois workers represented by unions fell to 14.7% in 2019, down from 18.3% in 2009, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While Illinois, the lowest-rated U.S. state at a notch above junk, passed a bill late last week authorizing borrowing up to $5 billion through the Fed’s municipal liquidity facility (MLF), legislation is pending in few other states.
“What cannot be forecast at this time is whether Illinois’ recovery will lag that of the U.S. or whether the historical divergence between Illinois and U.S. job growth will persist, widen or narrow,” said the authors.
The opening of libraries and park buildings west of the lakefront, along with other city services, will happen June 8, Lightfoot said. “Having a resurgence in cases is more than just a risk, it’s a very real possibility, and we have seen this in other states. All we have to do is look to the north, the south, the east or the west for examples. And if this happens, we will not hesitate to take the necessary steps, including moving back into phase two if necessary. So folks, let’s just be smart.”
CPS Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade said, “Students who don’t engage (now), it may not be solely based on technology access. So I cannot say that remote learning in the summer is going to all of a sudden miraculously be so much new and improved in comparison to what’s happening today.”
“Mind you, the push to reopen dining rooms isn’t about temper tantrums for table service. The restaurant industry is this state’s largest private sector employer. Roughly a half-million people rely on it for work. That’s why.”
At the 95th Street stop on the Dan Ryan Expressway, the team found three servicers there, and one servicer, the report said, just “walked back and forth.” The only supplies present were a towel, air freshener spray, and a foam cleaner. None of the servicers wiped down the high touch surfaces within the interior of the train cars.
“Just recall that last rush hour CTA train or bus before COVID-19. Bodies jammed against one another, everyone sharing the same droplet-laden air. If riders resort to their cars, it would mark a deflating regression for a city like Chicago that sees the CTA as a vascular system binding its neighborhoods.”
In Chicago, health and government officials do not know the types of jobs those with COVID-19 have in about 90% of the cases the state has tracked; in Illinois, it’s about 80%. Experts say tracking where people who’ve gotten COVID-19 live and work — and presumably where they may have come into contact with the virus — is vital to preventing and identifying potential future outbreaks.
Regarding discrepancies in online learning, she said, “We know prior to COVID, students from communities of color have been disadvantaged and have had compounding issues that they have to face. And COVID, it really illuminated our response to that. You kind of pull back the curtain on what’s going on and we get greater visibility in there.”
The recommendations for commercial offices include limiting the number of employees returning to work, varying start and stop times for people returning to work to promote social distancing conditions, and limiting capacity to no more than 25 percent for indoor spaces or activities with occupancy restrictions.
Even as the city begins to reopen, Lightfoot said a new outbreak of COVID-19 could prompt Chicago to move back to Phase 2.
Said one professor, “They (students) are also getting the opportunity to be responsible for a spread — it’s called a ‘super spreader event’ — that would begin on our campus and would spread to the wider eastern Illinois community and also Urbana Champaign, where there will be deaths.”
A statement from the Illinois Sheriff’s Association Executive Director Jim Kaitschuk reads, in part, “The task of safely housing detainees amid this unprecedented pandemic is challenge enough for Illinois Sheriffs without having to also shoulder IDOC’s responsibilities as well.”
On Republicans’ call for an audit, Pritzker said, “If their goal is to figure out what didn’t work right, I have stood here I don’t know how many times over the last two-plus months and told people what hasn’t worked right and how we’ve been trying to address it.”
The IDPH’s new emergency rule will require long-term care facilities to report to public health officials the number of residents and staff tested, along with the number of positive and negative test results. The governor said the emergency rule enforces existing policies, and those not complying will be found in violation of the rules and will be subject to fines or other licensing penalties through existing IDPH authority.
“Kudos to Mendoza for standing up against political pay raises. There’s just one problem: It’s not her choice to make. The state comptroller does not create a budget and decide who gets paid and who doesn’t, she simply pays the bills for the state. Members of the General Assembly and the governor are the ones who create a budget and make it law.”
The state’s persistent lack of financial reserves, its pattern of letting pension debt pile up and borrowing to meet short-term needs, and the prospect of higher interest rates for Illinois compound education advocates’ fears. “Given how battered the budget is, getting level funding for education is a good first step.”
University of Chicago economists estimate that nationwide, about 68% of jobless workers can get more in unemployment benefits than they make while working. That could hamper reopening efforts and slow an economic recovery. Some business owners also worry they’ll pile on debt if they can’t get loan forgiveness through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which requires them to keep employees on payroll.
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“It is only fair that people have the opportunity to collect signatures when the stay at home order is lifted and that the period of time since the stay at home order doesn’t count,” Ald. Michele Smith said.
Said Mark Grant, director of the Illinois chapter of the Illinois Federation of Independent Business, “The playing field isn’t put down fairly. We feel like the small guys are being really harmed by the policy that is in place. Large box stores are open and selling all sorts of stuff: hardware, groceries, even surfboards. Our members, who are their competitors – only really, really small – can’t open.”
The state’s estimated real-time unemployment rate now tops 23%. When you add those who have dropped out of the labor force – many of whom are likely not being counted due to mismanagement of the unemployment application system – the estimated unemployment rate would have been nearly 26%.
“The Governor has not and cannot state why or how crowds and masses of persons at a warehouse or supercenter store are any less ‘dangerous’ to public health than a responsibly distanced and sanitized worship service, yet the Governor exempted the non-religious Essential Activities from the 10-person limit unique to worship services,” they argued in the brief.
“I think they’re going through the same kind of anxiety that a lot of people have because former President (Barack) Obama is the central figure, even though he’s not a party to the lawsuit, and I think the judges don’t want to get into the middle of anything that smacks of a political dispute, or could turn into a political dispute. I think their desire and their intention is to get rid of this case fast,” said Herbert Caplan, founder of Protect Our Parks.
While there is no language in the budget that prohibits a pay raise, it does not provide any money to cover the cost of a pay raise. Mendoza’s office is being sued by two former Democratic state senators over past budgets that did block cost-of-living raises. Democrats cited that case as the reason similar language was left out in the upcoming budget.
Usually in instances of serious flooding there are inmates from state correctional facilities helping to stack those sandbags; COVID-19 has changed their procedures. The Illinois River flooding in north central Illinois, while receding, will also have an impact on the state’s partial reopening of state parks.
Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, and Logos Baptist Ministries in Niles, want a high court ruling before this weekend.
“We have to show that we’re open, in order to get the film companies to realize, “Ok, we have enough screens, we have enough mass, so now we can start releasing brand new movies,” one theater owner explained.
“Is it just a coincidence the contractor involved in Pritzker’s private construction projects got coronavirus contracts?”
Hope that the Trump Administration signs onto an additional $3 trillion in federal borrowing so that the federal government not only covers all pandemic-related city and state expenditures but also all lost revenues is not a strategy. Even if successful, that would still leave the city with a structural deficit of $1 billion and the city pension systems in perilous condition.
“All they wanted us to do was literally push them through,” Employee #1 said. “Not try and fix them, not try to get everything – just push them through that way and deal with them later. Push them through. How is that helping anyone?”
The case will be handled by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, based on geography, and he has asked the opposing state officials to respond by Thursday evening, just as Justice Elena Kagan asked of the California church that filed an emergency request on Tuesday.
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