Illinois is paying the price for not turning around its economy the same way its neighbors have, Brandi McGuire, Republican candidate for the District 72 state House seat, said.
“In Illinois, reforms have been impossible for decades due to establishment party rule from career politicians who just work to re-elect themselves," McGuire told Rock Island Today. "The status quo is fine with them."
A workforce report on data from August shows Illinois continues to lose workers to other states, with losses in major industries such as manufacturing, construction, education and health services, among others. The report, put out by the Illinois Department of Employment Security, showed that the state’s workforce shrank again in August, which constitutes the fourth month in a row.
"Illinois residents continue to drop out of the workforce at a concerning rate, driven out by the steady loss of jobs and anemic growth," acting Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) Director Sean McCarthy said in the report. "If our state enacted the structural reforms necessary to get Illinois growing at the national rate, we could create 200 new jobs every day and put Illinois back to work. Instead, the state lost 8,200 jobs (in August), and nearly 20,000 people gave up looking for work.”
McGuire said the advantage of moving out of state is particularly obvious in Rock Island County because of its proximity to Iowa.
“Businesses adversely affected by what I call the ‘Illinois Squeeze’ have only a mile and a half to go to relocate their businesses,” McGuire said. “As a result of this location, adjacent to Iowa's better economic climate, Illinois is not only losing revenue, but a skilled labor force, college graduates and taxpaying residents.”
So far this year, Illinois has lost 8,000 manufacturing jobs, in addition to the many more thousands lost in 2015. McGuire said those jobs are linked inextricably to jobs in other industries.
“If our small businesses are relocating to Iowa, why would larger manufacturers want to stay or new ones locate in Illinois?” McGuire said.
To solve the problem, McGuire said Illinois needs to implement workers' compensation reform, saying that attorneys are the only people who benefit from the high cost of workers' compensation insurance as it is right now. McGuire also said Illinois should freeze all taxes, including property taxes, because they’re “pricing taxpayers and business owners right out of existence.”
“Our business climate in Illinois is expensive, unstable and unwelcoming, with increasing bureaucracy and regulations for businesses,” McGuire said. “The top two concerns that district business owners voice to me is that it is too expensive to operate in Illinois and that work-ready employees are scarce. I am a small-business manager and can personally relate to their concerns.”
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