In my wanderings across the wide open spaces of the internet (or Internet?), I came across this blog post.
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2010/05/ratings.html
It's a couple years old, but has very interesting statistics on where Illinois ranks among the 50 states in various categories.
Lottery income.
Bond rating.
Infant mortality.
State employees per capita.
Stuff like that.
Since those stats were a little old, I thought I'd try to find some more updated ones. In maybe some different categories.
Here's what I found.
First, the good/encouraging stuff.....
IL was #1 in soybean production and #2 in corn production in 2013
Unfortunately, that's about the only good news I have to share today. These other stats are just plain depressing.....
50th..... DEAD LAST... in job growth
#50..... DEAD LAST..... in funding of public pensions
Illinois is 48th in fiscal condition
IL is #31 is business climate (a high ranking translates into conditions conducive to new businesses and new jobs; we don't have a high ranking)
48th in land available for public recreation
IL is 3rd in foreclosure activity
45th in emergency care environment
43rd in disaster preparedness
#2 in population "outflow" (people moving out of the state)
#42 in nursing home care quality
#5 in high college expenses
These other rankings may or may not be seen as "good news", depending on your perspective on the issues....
IL is #1 in animal protection laws
IL is 4th in number of wind turbines
How we can get things so right on animal protections and so wrong on pension/financial issues is beyond me.
Misguided priorities.
Out for now......
Matt