Based on 2021 estimates from the Pew Research Center based on calculations using U.S. Census Bureau data: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois had the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in 2021.

“Note the comments from Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy and Research, who points out that since processors who service merchants in Illinois will need to modify their platforms in response to the legislation, they will likely raise prices to merchants. … In fact he says that some processors may choose to not make the investment and simply terminate Illinois merchants!”

“The U.S. and Illinois economies remain in what most observers believe is the long-desired soft landing characterized by slower growth and moderating inflation while avoiding a recession,” said Fred Giertz, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “When the state starts looking for new revenue, it’s clear lawmakers start with businesses. So, businesses: be warned. Lawmakers are tinkering with enacting sweeping changes to Illinois’ public pension system — and the money to fund these changes will have to come from somewhere.”

“Our state is very diverse, and whether it’s the Quad Cities or central Illinois or southern Illinois or Chicago we have very different needs,” House Minority Leader Tony McCombie said. “Although this budget has some good things in it, it does leave things out, and it certainly does have tax increases that I believe will hurt a lot of our border communities, and that includes the Quad Cities.”

“(Gov. JB) Pritzker said Dems’ mindset has to be like game day when the Packers and Bears play. While people can spend the offseason debating coaches, quarterbacks, kickers, draft picks and play calls, when we get on the field, the goal is winning and ‘losing is not an option.’ One party activist called out, ‘for us,’ drawing a laugh from the crowd mindful of the Packers’ 10-game winning streak vs. the Bears.”

Jim Dey: “The reality is that Democrats now have — and almost surely will retain — a super-majority in the state House and Senate that is protected by gerrymandered legislative districts and way more than ample campaign cash buttressed by the governor’s family fortune.”

These three ordinances are: (1) the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, (2) the One Fair Wage Ordinance, and (3) the Cook County’s Minimum Wage Ordinance.

Illinois is the fifth-largest state for wind energy, and produces about 7 percent of the United States’ wind energy, according to the American Clean Power Association. “More than half of the (bat) species in the U.S. are either declining or at some risk of decline,” said Winifred Frick, chief scientist at Bat Conservation International. “Wind energy is the leading cause of mortality for our long-distance migratory species. And that mortality rate is worryingly high.”

“As poorly as government leaders have treated taxpayers, they have gone on to impose more hits with other local taxes to the point that Illinoisans now shoulder the nation’s highest state and local tax burden, taking 16.5 percent of the median income, or $12,479 a year. Pre-Pritzker that household was paying less than 15 percent, or $8,330. That is $4,149 more during the Pritzker era.”

There has been an explosion of pretrial hearings since cash bail was eliminated with the Pretrial Fairness Act, a component of the SAFE-T Act. The measure would provide pretrial services at no additional cost to the counties, but state taxpayers would see an increase cost of $2.7 million initially.

Only a few suburbs saw their share of income taxes shrink last year despite a rate increase from the Local Government Distributive Fund; no town was harder hit than Aurora, which lost $446,911 in 2023, records show. The recently approved state budget called for the LGDF rate to remain stagnant next fiscal year, which starts July 1.