The Fall 2018 Edition of ILEPI’s newsletter, Illinois Insights, has been released.

The Illinois Economic Policy Institute (ILEPI) has released the Fall 2018 Edition of our quarterly newsletter, Illinois Insights. In this issue, we discuss our series on unionization in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Declining union membership has primarily been due to the political environment. Unionization has fallen significantly in states who have seen attacks on collective bargaining from political leaders and special interests, such as Wisconsin, who saw public sector unionization plummet from 50% in 2011 to 19% in 2017. On the other hand, Minnesota, for example, strengthened labor standards and boosted investments in public infrastructure and public education. As a result, overall unionization in Minnesota has increased to 15%.

In addition, the Fall Edition of Illinois Insights highlights our recent study on legalizing marijuana in Illinois. Legalization would create nearly 24,000 new jobs, boost the state’s economy by $1 billion per year, generate over $500 million in new state and local tax revenue, and reduce annual incarceration costs.

As always, we updated Illinois’ economic indicators. The State saw an increase of over 50,000 jobs from September 2017 to September 2018.

Be sure to check out the Fall 2018 Edition!

Also, please subscribe to Illinois Insights by entering your email address here, like the Illinois Economic Policy Institute on Facebook, and follow the Illinois Economic Policy Institute on Twitter!