Prairie State Wire

Topping 7%, Illinois’ unemployment rate still stands nearly 2% higher than the national rate, prompting concerns from many across the state.

“New data out today show Illinois’ recovery continues to fall further behind the rest of the nation,” Illinois Policy Institute’s Bryce Hill recently posted on Twitter. “Despite improved job gains relative to recent months, Illinois’ unemployment rate remains virtually unchanged at 7.1% while the national rate declined to 5.4% in July.”

Republican lawmakers are blaming Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for the state’s shrinking job market.

“Democrats like Pritzker and Lightfoot continue to hold Illinois back,” the Illinois Republican Party recently posted on Facebook, with party chairman Don Tracy adding the governor’s policies strike him as a “sociologist approach to economics.”

“Unlike a majority of red states that have seen job recovery rates at 70+ %, the state has yet to crack 50%, with only 44.4% of jobs lost due to the pandemic recovered," Tracy added. “Yet, opportunities for the Biden and Pritzker administrations to step in and work to protect job creators and get Illinoisans – and by extension our state’s economy - back on track have not been taken.”

Critics highlight a new national study that finds Chicago’s unemployment recovery rate since the pandemic started ranks 172nd out of the 180 most-populous U.S. cities.

Recent analysis conducted by WalletHub finds the city’s unemployment recovery rate spiraled above 9% in May, representing a 140% increase from before the pandemic spiked at the start of the year. While the city ranked near the bottom across four different metrics, researchers noted the numbers were especially glaring when analyzing the unemployment recovery.

State Sen. Dave Syverson (R-Cherry Valley) wants an audit of what he sees as Pritzker’s mismanagement.

"I'm calling for a complete audit of Governor Pritzker’s  management of the state’s unemployment program following the release of a  financial audit of the Illinois Department of Employment Security  (IDES)," Syverson said in a post to Facebook.