Inside:
- Illinois unemployment rate holds at 5.3%
- Legislation harmful to developmentally disabled workers passes General Assembly
- Welcoming Monmouth students to the Capitol
- Illinois hunters harvest more than 54,000 deer during first weekend of firearm season
Illinois unemployment rate holds at 5.3%
Figures from the Department of Employment Security report that Illinois’ unemployment rate held steady at 5.3% in October. The national unemployment rate is 4.2%.
While the state has 6,142,400 non-agricultural workers who are presently employed in Illinois, payroll growth in the state has flattened out to zero. Once again, some sectors of the economy were up and some others were down. Those sectors gaining jobs included health care (up by 30,400) and government (up by 22,300). Some of those sectors which shed jobs in October were professional and business services (down by 18,400) and financial services (lost 8000).
Highest unemployment in Illinois is concentrated in areas of the state which are reliant on manufacturing, such as Danville, which led Illinois with a 6.2% unemployment rate, Decatur at 5.8% and Rockford, which came in at 5.4%.
The 5.3% unemployment rate in Illinois is an increase of half a percentage point from one year ago, when unemployment stood at 4.8%.
Legislation harmful to developmentally disabled workers passes General Assembly
Last spring I told you about House Bill 793, legislation which would threaten the jobs of developmentally disabled workers around the state.
The issue centers on a federal program known as a 14(c) certificate, which refers to a section of the Fair Labor Standards Act, originally signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. It allows employers to hire intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals at wages below the federal minimum wage and set up workshops to provide them with support. It provides job opportunities and allows service providers to offer efficient services to disabled individuals.
However, the bill which passed the House back in May and the Senate just before Thanksgiving would change things. It would mandate a large wage increase, but provide no financial assistance to employers, which will lead to many of these jobs being eliminated and the workers being pushed into unemployment.
I have heard from concerned parents and the families of some of these workers in our district. One example is a local business in our area which pays $359,000 a year to provide developmentally disabled workers a job making painters’ palettes. They work about 24 hours a week. The wage increase mandated by this bill would quickly burn through those funds and cause the jobs to be eliminated. Other businesses in our area are in a similar situation. In small towns there are not a lot of other options for disabled workers to find the training and attention they need.
The parents I have talked to have expressed their worry to me about what they are going to do when they no longer have somewhere to bring their son or daughter because they no longer have a job. I asked that question to the House sponsor of the bill during debate, but could not get an answer.
If this mandate is forced on these small businesses, many of these workers will lose their jobs. The bill has passed the Senate and is now awaiting action from the Governor.
Welcoming Monmouth students to the Capitol
During the closing days of the fall veto session, I welcomed a group of students from Monmouth College to the chamber of the Illinois House of Representatives.
The students have been studying state government and came to Springfield to see the House of Representatives up close.
Click here to see the full introduction.
Illinois hunters harvest more than 54,000 deer during first weekend of firearm season
A preliminary total of 54,661 deer were harvested by hunters during the first weekend of firearm deer season in Illinois, up slightly from 53,348 during the opening weekend last year. The second portion of firearm season is this weekend.
Muzzleloader-only season is next weekend, December 13-15, with archery deer season continuing through January 19, but archery deer hunting is closed this weekend in counties which are open for firearm season.
Hunters in our area harvested 480 deer in Rock Island County, 542 in Mercer, 300 in Henry, 352 in Warren, 715 in Knox and 495 in McDonough according to figures from the Department of Natural Resources.
Find out more about deer hunting in Illinois here.
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