Illinois Jobs Improve?

Nationally, the January jobs were double expectations, so obviously the economy is turning around.

Illinois lags behind (as usual) but shows "improvement for the first time in TWENTY-FIVE months, so that's a good thing, right?

Not exactly:

• Chicago businesses expanded in January for the first time in 25 months, according to the Chicago Business Barometer. Chicago had a score of 54.0 for the month, up from 43.5 the previous month. A score below 50 indicates decline.

  The rebound in overall activity was driven by an increase in employment, which rose 17.5 points from December’s score, the lowest since 2009.

But (there's always a "but"), guess where the growth was?

• Almost all of the Chicago area’s job gains from November 2024 to November 2025 were in government with 19,800 and education and health services with 21,200. Professional and business services lost 11,200 jobs, and trade, transportation, and utilities lost 10,000.

So government grew. And how does the government pay for growth?

• increasing taxes

And what's still shrinking in Illinois?

• population

Meaning more taxes on the fewer remaining.

Nationally, the federal government cut over 42,000 jobs while Illinois added almost half that number to their payroll. This is not a sustainable model. We need to shrink state and local government.