Prairie State Wire

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Curran argues the state’s growing unemployment rate proves just how out of touch Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Gov. J.B. Pritzker are with the people they’re supposed to represent.

“The unemployment rate in Illinois is an expansive problem now,” Curran said. “Our Democrat governor and Sen. Durbin don’t know what it’s like to have no income coming in. One has a silver spoon in his mouth and the other is a bloviating career politician who hasn’t missed a taxpayer-funded paycheck in 37 years.”

Almost six months after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the state’s unemployment numbers remain alarmingly high, with the U.S. Department of Labor reporting in its most recent report that more than 1.4 million Illinoisans have filed for initial unemployment benefits since the pandemic hit back in March.

“The No. 1 constituent service request I get right now is help with unemployment, help with housing,” state Rep. Sonya Harper (D-Chicago) told The Center Square.

Curran, who is set to face Durbin in November, stresses the problems with the system hardly end there.

“Now we have a big fraud problem on our hands plaguing the system,” he added. “The state apparently is taking weeks to return calls for help, while people are struggling to successfully apply and receive the benefits they need to survive right now. Inept democrats in power say nothing. Do nothing.”

Curran recently offered Illinois voters a blueprint for what he thinks is needed to bring about the kind of government many of them insist they now want to see.

“We have to elect people who go to Springfield to do the work of the people and not to enrich themselves,” he said. “We need to demand that our lawmakers create a system that institutes better investigative powers. Right now, we’re allowing these career politicians to pass the laws to protect themselves from everything.”