Latest News

• Wednesday, February 8, 2012 

  Letters to the Editor

  Illinois Works for the Future has collaborated with its partners across the state with a series of letters to the editor in response to the State of Illinois’ current fiscal situation. Submitted letters focused primarily on the state’s antiquated tax system not collecting enough revenue to fund sufficient basic services for its citizens.

  The following letters were published in various media outlets throughout the state:

  • Daily Herald — Suburban Chicago, Illinois: “Budget cuts also can cut jobs” Feb. 8, 2012
  • Chicago Sun-Times, Oak Brook — Oak Brook, Illinois: “Budget cuts are bad medicine” Feb. 5, 2012
  • Chicago Sun-Times, Clarendon Hills — Clarendon Hills, Illinois: “Budget cuts are bad medicine” Feb. 5, 2012
  • State Journal-Register — Springfield, Illinois: “Budget cuts hurt real people” Feb. 1, 2012
  • Herald & Review — Decatur, Illinois: “Taxes, not spending, are the root of state’s budget problems” Jan. 26, 2012
  • Chicago Tribune — Chicago, Illinois: “Illinois Budget” Jan. 26, 2012
• Thursday, November 17, 2011 

  Legislative Report: Veto Session Round-up

  The Illinois State Legislature recently finished up their regularly scheduled Veto Session to try and complete any unfinished business left over from regular session. A number of important items were passed but even more went undone.  The House will reconvene on November 29th to continue to work on outstanding legislation.

  During the first week of Veto Session, state lawmakers overrode the Governor’s veto of the controversial Smart Grid legislation, and also passed a rider bill that provides more protections for consumers than what was included in the original bill.  The legislation allows Ameren to raise consumer electric rates by 2.5% annually to compensate them for 3.2 billion dollars of investment in smart grid technology which will allow for better monitoring of energy usage and improved response to outages.  Ameren and ComEd are also required to create 2,450 jobs in Illinois through this legislation. The rider bill, which passed the legislature but has not yet been signed into law by Governor Quinn, would also require that the electric companies contribute an additional 60 million dollars toward low income rate relief and further infrastructure improvement aimed at protecting against blackouts.

  Some other important legislation which passed includes:

  • A bill which restores solvency to the Unemployment Insurance Fund.  The fund was in jeopardy due to the large number of unemployed Illinoisans over the past few years which had left the fund with a debt of two billion dollars.  This fix to the UI Fund will save businesses and taxpayers a significant amount of money over the next few years.
  • A Regional Superintendants’ Salary bill which found money to pay school superintendants from the local Personal Property Tax Replacement fund.  Governor Quinn vetoed their salaries out of the budget in July, and many of them have been working without pay since then.
  • Finally a bill was passed that would allow the City of Chicago to use Speed Cameras to issue tickets to people driving over the speed limit near parks and schools.

  Bills that were left unfinished and may continue to be worked on later this month include:

  • Whether or not to give a 100 million dollar Tax Break to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME.) As a part of that package other businesses, such as Sears, might also get state tax relief and the Governor wants to see an increase to the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low income earners as part of any deal for CME.
  • A Gaming Expansion bill which would create five new casinos (including one in Chicago).
  • A Budget Reallocation bill that will keep seven state facilities open for the rest of this fiscal year that the Governor was planning to close.  This budget reallocation bill would also restore about 60 million dollars to community mental health, homeless, and substance abuse services that were inadvertently cut during the appropriations process last summer.  Under the compromise in this bill six state facilities would still close, but gradually over the course of the next two years.

  IWF will continue to monitor all legislative activities when lawmakers reconvene after the Thanksgiving Holiday. For more information, please contact Dan Lyonsmith at 312.252.0460 x301 or dan@cjc.net.

•  

  Employment Taskforce in Aurora Develops Collaborative Transitional Jobs Program Proposal

  Members of the Aurora Homelessness Initiative’s Employment Taskforce reached a tentative agreement between six nonprofit organizations to start a pilot transitional jobs program that will serve homeless individuals in the Aurora area. A transitional job is a time-limited, subsidized position that combines real work, skill development, and supportive services to transition participants into the labor market.

  The Aurora Homelessness Initiative (AHI) is a collaboration of organizations that work to reduce the number of homeless residents in the Aurora area. Mayor Tom Weisner launched the AHI in 2006 and the initiative made employment a priority by creating a taskforce to focus solely on this issue.

  Members of the employment taskforce include the Quad County Urban League, Hope for Tomorrow, Waubonsee Community College, Hesed House, Wayside Cross Ministries, and the Chicago Jobs Council.

  The taskforce conducted site visits in Chicago to learn from successful models of service delivery from the following transitional jobs providers: The Cara Program, Heartland Alliance, and Inspiration Corporation. The group also consulted with staff from the National Transitional Jobs Network to help inform their program.

  After doing research into the transitional jobs model, the group developed an agreement between the member agencies regarding which role each one will play in a pilot transitional jobs program. The group is now actively seeking funding to launch the program.

  For more information about this collaborative project, please contact Steve Simmons, Senior Policy Associate at the Chicago Jobs Council, at 312-252-0435 or steve@cjc.net.

•  

  Illinois Lawmakers and Stakeholders Receive Latest IWF Report

  Earlier this month, representatives from the Illinois Works for the Future (IWF) campaign distributed copies of its latest report to state lawmakers and key stakeholders. The report, entitled Putting the Workforce at the Center of Economic Development: Leaders from across Illinois call for Investment in Skills, includes findings and recommendations to inform state-level strategies for building Illinois’ workforce skills.

  The letter educates lawmakers and stakeholders about the struggles many Illinoisans face in finding employment and gaining the necessary skills required for future jobs during this economic downturn. IWF leadership calls for the state of Illinois to elevate investment in adult workforce skills to the top of its economic development priorities by:

  • Implementing the 21^st Century Workforce Development Fund;
  • Developing career pathways for low-skilled adults;
  • Further advancing the integration of workforce and economic development policy and strategy; and
  • Supporting innovation in communities and regions with smaller populations, so that they can be competitive for state, federal, and private workforce funding opportunities.

  IWF also recommends that the state ensure that local innovation translates into state-level strategies to build on the skills of the workforce and ensure future economic competitiveness in Illinois.

  The report, which was released in early Fall 2011, was informed by a series of community forums IWF leadership held with local leaders in five communities across the state. The forums helped build a statewide picture of local workforce and economic development priorities and needs. The full report can be found here.

• Tuesday, September 20, 2011 

  President Obama Proposes American Jobs Act

  President Obama proposed a new bill before a joint session of Congress that focuses on getting Americans back to work by creating jobs. The bill has come at a time when many Americans are growing tired of persistent high unemployment and trying economic insecurity, and are demanding solutions.

  The American Jobs Act consists of proven strategies that seek to address the nation’s immediate jobs crisis as well as its long term economic prosperity. Its proposals include half a billion dollars worth of job-creation programs, infrastructure investments and tax credits that have seen broad support from both political parties in the past. What is more, the $447 billion cost of the bill is fully paid for through a deficit reduction plan the President plans to release in the near future, but which has been indicated to include a balanced approach of revenue increases, additional spending cuts, tax reform, and proposed changes to Medicaid and Medicare.

  The bill includes a few main components:

  • First, a large portion of the bill includes a proposal to extend and expand the payroll tax cut to help put more money back into the pockets of workers as well as small businesses. The proposed cut would halve the payroll tax paid by employees through 2012 to 3.1%, saving a worker who makes $50,000 per year about $1,500. Small businesses would enjoy this payroll tax cut for the first time ever. All businesses would also be able to take advantage of additional tax credits if they hire workers, raise wages, or make capital investments.
  • Second, the bill would extend unemployment insurance for another year so that millions of Americans relying on these benefits are not left out to dry. The bill also includes a $4,000 tax credit for businesses that hire workers who have been unemployed for 6 months or more and prohibits employers from discriminating against someone just because they have been unemployed for an extended period of time.
  • Third, the bill contains substantial infrastructure investments that would initiate projects based on need and impact building and repairing roads, bridges, railroads, and airports, and repairing and modernizing 35,000 school buildings. These investments would put many laid off construction workers, first responders, and unemployed veterans back to work, as well as 28,000 teachers.
  • Lastly, the bill develops a “Pathways Back to Work Fund”, which will provide summer and year-round jobs for youth, innovative education and training programs directed towards low-income individuals, and programs that provide incentives to employers to hire disadvantaged workers.

  The President’s proposal is a major step in turning our national attention from deficit reduction back to job creation. This task is ever more important now that new census data reports that the nation’s poverty rate soared to a record high in 2010. With 46.2 million Americans living in poverty in 2010, it is critical that our economic development strategies include workforce development so that we can create jobs and ensure that our workers have the education and job skills necessary to fill them.

  Read the American Jobs Act for yourself here. For a summary on workforce provisions of the proposed Act from the National Skills Coalition, click here.

• Wednesday, September 7, 2011 

  New Report: Communities from Across Illinois Call for Investment in Skills

  Illinois Works for the Future (IWF) has released a summary report of findings and recommendations to inform state-level strategies for building Illinois’ workforce skills. The report, entitled Putting the Workforce at the Center of Economic Development: Leaders from across Illinois call for Investment in Skills, is informed by a series of community forums IWF leadership held with local leaders in five communities across the state, which helped to build a statewide picture of local workforce and economic development priorities and needs.

  Working off the assumption that communities are the best source of information for what they need, the community forums were designed to hear from local experts about: the current workforce and/or economic development goals for their community; the current challenges and/or opportunities to meet those goals; ideas for effective strategies that will work in a particular community; and how IWF can advance state policy, programs, and investments to support their local workforce and economic development goals.

  The cumulative results of these questions identified four key themes:

  • Local workforce services benefit from improved connection to economic development and education systems. Local leaders stressed this strategy as the best way to improve the quality of training services, reach underserved populations, and be most efficient with the limited resources available.
  • Workforce development services are the on-ramp for the least skilled adults to career and education pathways. This critical strategy recognizes that meeting demand for skilled workers requires more than quality training programs, but also education and skills that are transferrable across occupations and incite lifetime learning.
  • Local workforce initiatives—coordinated with local economic development strategies—aid business creation and retention, but need more support. The skills of the workforce are a key strategy to attract and retain local businesses. Businesses and economic developers actively engaged in workforce and education initiatives can be better served by a stronger vision and more flexibility in state economic development investments.
  • Effective investment strategies are the key to local, successful workforce innovation. Sustainable and flexible investment and fewer restrictions in workforce programs will increase their effectiveness, particularly in smaller population areas.

  Translating these themes into concrete actions, IWF calls for the state of Illinois to elevate investments in the skills of the adult workforce to the top of the state’s economic development priorities by:

  • Implementing the 21^st Century Workforce Development Fund;
  • Developing career pathways for low-skilled adults;
  • Further advancing the integration of workforce and economic development policy and strategy; and
  • Supporting innovation in communities and regions with smaller populations, so that they can be competitive for state, federal, and private workforce funding opportunities.

  The full report can be found here.

  The press release for the report can be found here.

• Wednesday, August 31, 2011 

  Gov. Quinn Signs Job Creation Bill (HB 2927)

  On Sunday, Governor Quinn signed into law House Bill 2927, which creates a statewide subsidized jobs program. Sponsored by Rep. Mathias in the House, and Sen. Noland in the Senate, the bill passed both chambers in late May.

  House Bill 2927 updates the Illinois Emergency Employment Development program and, if funded, will provide a temporary, partial wage subsidy to private sector employers, incentivizing the creation of new jobs for long term unemployed job seekers. Small businesses are the main job creation engines in Illinois, and this program is well suited to help them expand their workforce. HB 2927 will result in the direct creation of jobs and stimulate local economies.

  This bill prioritizes individuals who have been unemployed for over six months, and who have no other source of income. It encourages coordination of workforce education and training opportunities so people can meet their basic needs while upgrading their skills and education. To ensure successful placement of workers through the program, the bill also provides supportive service resources, including child care and job search assistance. The measure calls for the state to explore ways to utilize this program in conjunction with other resources to offer transitional jobs programs for those with more significant barriers to employment.

  While funding for the program is subject to appropriations, it is linked to the 21st Century Workforce Development Fund, which was established in law in 2009 to provide a sustainable funding stream for workforce development strategies.

  Thanks to all who reached out to legislators in support of this bill.

• Tuesday, August 30, 2011 

  Rep. Schakowsky Announces Bill to Create 2.2 Million Jobs

  Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) announced on August 10th a new bill that would create over 2 million jobs for two years. At a time when 9.1 percent of Americans are out of work, Representative Schakowsky’s bill would bring the unemployment rate down by 1.3 percent and create quality jobs to get American families back on track.

  Titled the “Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act”, the bill would put people back to work improving the nation’s communities. The bill would create:

  • A School Improvement Corps, which would create 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.

  • A Park Improvement Corps, which would create 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service’s Public Lands Corps Act. Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands including the restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.

  • A Student Jobs Corps, which would create 250,000 more part-time work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.

  • A Neighborhood Heroes Corps, which would hire 300,000 new teachers, 40,000 new police officers, and 12,000 new firefighters.

  • A Health Corps, which would hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.

  • A Child Care Corps, which would create 100,000 jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.

  • A Community Corps, which would hire 750,000 individuals to do needed work in communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.

  Funding for the bill, which is projected to cost $227 billion, would be created through separate legislation introduced by Schakowsky. The “Fairness in Taxation Act” would set new tax brackets starting at 45 percent for people who have taxable income of a million dollars in a year. For a person making a billion dollars, the tax rate would be 49 percent. The bill would also eliminate big oil subsidies and close tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

  More importantly, the bill would prioritize the long term unemployed (those who have been unemployed for 26 weeks or more) and those who have exhausted their state and federal unemployment benefits. In Illinois, the long term unemployed comprise almost half of the total unemployed, and the maximum amount of time an unemployed worker can receive unemployment benefits was recently reduced to 25 weeks. Federal extended unemployment insurance allows claimants to obtain up to 73 weeks of benefits after exhausting their regular benefits, for a total of 99 weeks, but those benefits are set to expire in January of 2012.

• Wednesday, July 27, 2011 

  Illinois State Budget Update

  Last month, Governor Quinn signed into law a new state budget for FY 2012, while also including last minute cuts of $376 million from appropriations approved by the General Assembly in May. By targeting cuts in human services and other vital services, the budget places a heavy burden on workers, families and communities still struggling in the economic recovery.

  Among all state agencies, the Department of Human Services (DHS) has been hit hardest by the fiscal crisis of the past several years. Between FY 2009 and FY 2011, the department’s General Revenue Fund (GRF) budget was reduced by nearly $300 million. The GRF is the largest state fund that receives state income and tax revenues, which are not allocated by law to a specific fund or purpose but generally support human services, education, and other social program spending.

  Employment and training services under DHS face significant challenges as the legislature’s budget, beginning July 1^st, reduced GRF funding for both Employability Development Services and Food Stamp Employment and Training by more than 50 percent. These services assist recipients of public benefits in transitioning to economic self sufficiency and are ultimately unwise for the state’s long term interest in reducing the number of Illinois workers who rely on public assistance. Scarce resources for service provider contracts will be even more limited, and their ability to reach the neediest jobseekers will be decreased.   Over 12,000 parents in the state’s TANF program are required to work, but there is only enough funding to provide workforce services to less than 20% of them.

  Other training programs under the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO)- including the Employer Training Investment Program (ETIP), Job Training and Economic Development Grant Program (JTED), and Employment Opportunities Grant Program (EOGP)- were also reduced. These programs are critical in ensuring that Illinois workers remain competitive by increasing their skills. ETIP grants reimburse Illinois companies for up to 50 percent of the cost of training their employees, where JTED provides grants to not-for-profit community-based organizations (CBOs) so that they can work with small local businesses to develop curricula, train eligible workers, and provide ongoing support. Also, EOGP helps fill the demand for a skilled workforce by preparing participants for placement in high wage union construction jobs and access to public as well as private construction jobs throughout the state, particularly for individuals in historically underrepresented populations.

  Therefore, the final budget includes deep cuts in programs that serve Illinois’s most vulnerable populations. During their October/November veto session, lawmakers could uphold the Governor’s changes or vote to restore funds.  Although overriding a line-item veto requires a three-fifths vote, reversing a reduction only requires a simple majority.

•  

  U.S. Senate Moves Towards Reauthorization of Workforce Investment Act

  In mid-June, the United States Senate Healthcare, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released bipartisan discussion drafts of a proposed Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill for public comment, paving the way for much-needed new investments in workforce development. The Senate’s initiative presents an opportunity to greatly improve the framework for ensuring that our nation’s workers receive the important services and support they need to go back to work and begin rebuilding our economy.  This draft legislation gives stakeholders a better sense of the Senate’s priorities when, and if, they decide to finally reauthorize WIA.

  Nearly 34 million people were served by all federal workforce programs in 2009, with almost 800,000 in Illinois. During the recession, the need for WIA services saw substantial increases. The Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs funded under Title I of WIA served 8,025,635 participants nationally in the twelve month period ending June 30, 2010, an increase of 257 percent over the comparable period ending June 30, 2007. The increased participation was possible only with the infusion of one-time money through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  Most of those funds have run out, even though unemployment remains high.  Illinois’ unemployment rate increased to 9.2% in June 2011.

  The draft WIA legislation makes strides to better ensure that the workforce system effectively addresses the skill requirements of workers and businesses in today’s economy. By reorganizing the existing titles to support program alignment, emphasizing regional planning and collaboration, and including new investments in sector partnerships, career pathways, credential measurement, system-wide measures, and the Workforce Innovation Fund, the legislation presents positive changes to the existing structure. Concerns of advocates lie in the clarity of methods to improve services for the most disadvantaged and the ability of the adult education system to adopt the new mandates. To read summaries and analysis of the new titles under the draft legislation, click here.

  More than forty national organizations sent a letter to the HELP committee in late June commending the Senate’s bipartisanship and supporting efforts to advance the bill. Other groups lent their voice to the issue directly. The Chicago Jobs Council submitted comments and the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law developed legislative recommendations in response to the drafts to inform the HELP committee’s course of action.

  As in the past, failure to reauthorize WIA in a timely manner will leave federal job training programs vulnerable to future funding cuts, disrupting key services for jobseekers and impacting the ability of the nation’s employers to find the skilled workers they need to grow and compete. WIA was enacted in 1998 and expired in 2003, though Congress has continued to appropriate annual funding for the program. The committee has not scheduled a mark up of the bill. The bill must be approved by the HELP committee in order to move to the Senate floor, where legislators will discuss, amend and vote on it before it moves to the House of Representatives for approval. It is likely that the House version will be different from the Senate’s, as House members have shown no indication of interest or priority in WIA reauthorization. Moreover, the federal budget debate and debt-ceiling conversation has unfortunately overshadowed this important matter.

  Nonetheless, IWF will continue to monitor the WIA reauthorization process and disseminate updates.

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