Chicago business activity down, unemployment rate up

By Glenn Minnis | The Center Square contributor
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Wirepoints executive editor Mark Glennon isn’t holding back on what to make of Chicago’s stumbling economy, including 23 straight months of decreased business activity and an unemployment rate that falls well below the national average.

With a score below 50 representing a decline in business, Chicago Business Barometer researchers recently graded the city at 43.8 on the strength of metrics that include supply chain data, new orders, inventories, production, employment trends and supplier deliveries.

At the same time, the city’s unemployment rate stands at 4.9%, compared to 4.6% across the rest of the country.

“Obviously, it’s not for want of natural assets,” Glennon told The Center Square. “We’ve been blessed with things that most cities in the world would kill for; the transportation system at the center of the country, wonderful universities, all these things were handed to us by previous generations. There’s nothing wrong with Illinois or our people. It’s our government that has failed us and it’s because they have shown a total indifference to fundamental economics and simple common sense.”

With the only employment gains over that time coming in such sectors as education and health services, Glennon warns the worst may still be yet to come.

“Perhaps the most damning figure of all is that in recent years … any job growth that we have had has been from the government,” he said. “Obviously, that doesn’t work. Taxpayers have to pay for those government jobs and taxpayers aren’t there because they’re not employed. The sad fact is that Illinois has become a drag on the national economy and Chicago increasingly is a drag on the state of Illinois. Doom is the right word for it.”

Over the month of October, only supplier deliveries expanded, with all the other sectors ranking below 50.