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Statistics show Illinois lost 17,000 jobs in 2025, leaving at
least 302,000 residents still looking for work. At the same time
across the country, employers added upward of 584,000 posts,
settling the national unemployment rate at 4.4%, compared to
4.6% in Illinois.
Miller insists figuring out reasons for the differences grow
easier by the day.
“When you compare the cost of doing business in the state of
Illinois and cost of doing business in other places that are
more business-friendly, the answer is the exodus from Illinois
continues because of bad public policy and then the hostile
environment for working families and small business,” the
lawmaker told TCS. “There is less opportunity for small
businesses and middle-class families to thrive and therefore as
businesses leave the rate of unemployment goes up.”
Since 2020, the state’s job market has struggled to recover from
the pandemic, ending 2025 as just one of 16 states to shed jobs
over the last year to now rank No. 46 in the country in job
recovery over the last five years. By comparison, four of the
six neighboring states (Missouri, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin)
ended 2025 with an unemployment rate below 4%.
“We are our own worst enemy because of the bad public policy,”
Miller said. “If we continue to do what we've always done, we'll
continue to get what we've always gotten, and that means that
the exodus of families and the exodus of business is going to
continue and it's going to increase.”
With the state already being home to among the highest state and
local tax burdens in the country and the third highest state
corporate income tax, Miller warns things may be poised to get
worse before they get better.
In 2025, more than 108,000 Illinoisans left the workforce,
lowering the state’s labor force participation rate from over
65% to a little more than 63% over a 12-month period, placing
the state No. 35 in the country for overall job creation.
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