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* This seems like a common sense bill…
A new law in Illinois that will take effect at the end of the year is aimed at protecting renters if their landlord’s property goes into foreclosure.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed the law that says that those who buy multifamily properties out of foreclosure should either honor existing tenant leases or give the renters 90 days to move.
State officials say that about 40 percent of families affected by foreclosure are renters.
* From a press release…
Currently, tenants living in foreclosed properties are protected under federal law, but those protections are set to sunset in 2014.
Under the new state law, an owner who acquires a property in a foreclosure proceeding can evict a tenant only at the end of the lease or, if there is no lease, with 90 days’ notice.
If the new owner intends to use the property as his or her primary residence, he or she may terminate the lease but must still give 90 days’ notice. A bank foreclosing on a rental property also must inform tenants of where they should pay their rent.
The bill is here.
Of course, pulling the state and the nation out of the housing foreclosure crisis would probably do a lot more good. But this never-ending economic slump is beyond stubborn.
…Adding… A similar bill was introduced way back in 2007.
* There was a spot of good news accompanying the state’s lousy July unemployment rate report, however…
The number of jobs across the Chicago area grew by 1.9 percent last month from a year earlier, but the unemployment rate still increased.
Highlighting volatility in employment figures, the region encompassing Chicago, Joliet and Naperville saw one of the state’s largest increases in job growth and in the rate of unemployment, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
The unemployment rate measures those who are actively searching for work, so if someone gives up their search, they are no longer counted. Conversely, if a region sees job growth but the unemployment rate rises, it indicates that more people are starting to look for jobs.
But…
Across the state, the unemployment rate fell last month in seven of 12 metro areas, but the number of jobs declined in eight out of 12.
So, while the Metro East area saw its unemployment rate drop by a full percentage point, to 8.6 percent, the number of jobs have actually declined by 2,300 from a year ago.
Springfield’s rate fell by a tenth of a point, but Springfield now has 200 fewer gross, non-farm jobs than it did a year ago. Ugh.
And while that 1.9 percentage point increase in the number of jobs in the Chicago region is good news, it’s still not nearly enough over a year’s time. We need growth, man.
The full report is here.
* Meanwhile…
The issue of raising Illinois’ minimum wage generated quite a bit of controversy early in the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly.
One bill in particular, which proposed raising Illinois’ minimum wage from $8.25 an hour to $10 over three years, generated lots of opposition from the business community, which said raising the minimum wage would result only in employers cutting existing minimum wage jobs.
But it never got a vote in the House or Senate, where it remains in the Assignments Committee. By session’s end, pension reform, concealed carry and same-sex marriage had pushed minimum wage off the stage.
If you listened to Gov. Pat Quinn’s speech to Democratic county chairmen last week, though, you heard the minimum wage stepping back into the spotlight as one of the main planks of Quinn’s reelection campaign platform.
“It’s a principle as old as the Bible. If you work 40 hours a week, you should not live in poverty,” Quinn told the crowd in Springfield. “That’s why we’re going to raise the Illinois minimum wage as well.”
I really doubt that bill will be approved by the House if it does clear the Senate. The Illinois Retail Merchants Association, among others, is dead-set against it, and they have a very friendly ear in Speaker Madigan.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 2:02 pm
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Rev. Quinn, please cite that particular Bible verse…..I recall the Sermon on the Mount about the poor you will always have with you…….and which Union was The Lord referencing?
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 2:11 pm
Housing sales and prices are up significantly across the state. Historically, housing has been a prime mover of the economy.
http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2013/08/21/home-sales-surging-in-chicago-and.html
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 2:11 pm
Look’s like those artificially low mortgage interest rates primed buy the stimulus’ and the fed buying billions in mortgage backed securities is finally paying off. The rates and the buying won’t last forever, folks. Get to buying!
Can you even imagine buying a new house with a rate at 6% ever again? We would have to have a pretty stellar economy for people to take on that liability…
Comment by Phenomynous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 2:22 pm
Another principle as old as the Bible is, Thou Shalt Not Steal. You truly want to help poor people making minimum wage? At the very least you can stop stealing their income. Raise the standard deduction to $20,000 in Illinois. Then demand it be done at the federal level, including FICA.
Calling for a minimum wage hike without calling for the elimination of income taxes on poor people is all about scoring partisan political points and has little to do with a desire to truly help the poor. If you truly did want to help minimum wage workers the first thing you would do is to stop stealing their income.
Comment by Jeff Trigg Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 2:40 pm
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 ESV / 71 helpful votes
And to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
The claim that God hates inequality is refuted by Jesus’ parable of the talents, the point of which is that God gives all of us different abilities and talents and it’s up to us to serve Him with those talents.
Comment by 4 percent Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 2:43 pm
I owned very profitable Retail/Wholesale small businesses for nearly 20 years and can’t remember paying anybody the minimum wage. I always hired the best people away from my competition by paying them 20% more than their current employer.
The minimum wage should reflect minimum living costs, and today, should be well over $10 per hour. Our current minimum wage jobs are built on Wage Slavery. American business should be ashamed, but, of course, they’re not.
Comment by Louis Howe Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:07 pm
**Rev. Quinn, please cite that particular Bible verse…..I recall the Sermon on the Mount about the poor you will always have with you…….and which Union was The Lord referencing?**
You know, when you criticize one’s use of the Bible, you may want to do so by using and quoting the Bible correctly. The “poor will always be with you” isn’t in the Sermon on the Mount. Nor does the “poor will always be with you” mean that one shouldn’t do anything about poverty, or, in this case, low wages.
**The claim that God hates inequality is refuted by Jesus’ parable of the talents,**
That is some pretty lousy exegesis, considering that the parable of the talents isn’t about liking/hating inequality , but it is instead about using what one is given.
Bible study over.
**Calling for a minimum wage hike without calling for the elimination of income taxes on poor people is all about scoring partisan political points and has little to do with a desire to truly help the poor.**
Right… because making $1 more per hour, or $.85 more after taxes, doesn’t help. Huh? While I agree with you in your desire to further reduce the tax pressures on the poor, your argument that supporting a min wage increase without pushing for other things as well makes little sense.
Comment by dave Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:14 pm
““It’s a principle as old as the Bible. If you work 40 hours a week, you should not live in poverty,” Quinn told the crowd in Springfield. “That’s why we’re going to raise the Illinois minimum wage as well.””
‘Earth to Quinn’ - More and more jobs - particularly any new job growth (what there is) - isn’t 40 hours. It’s substantially part time. Now you can argue over the causes, but that’s what is happening.
And most of those jobs don’t offer any benefits.
And Quinn is still busy pushing old, stale ideas from the 80’s and 90’s. If this guy ever had an original thought, it would probably die of heartbreak, loneliness, and malnutrition.
Comment by Judgment Day Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:20 pm
Whelp , there you go again talking about “jobs”.
The word “jobs” no longer means what you have been conditioned into thinking what it means — a living wage activity to support ones family while creating a better standard of living for all by producing something of value.
The phoney rigged glorious “jobs” numbers.
How many did they say Illinois created over the last year? Something like 55,500 give or take wasn’t it?
http://www.ides.illinois.gov/?item=4985&newssidebar=1
Now go here :: http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/29snapcurrpp.htm
Oh my!! Look at the food stamp caseloads over the time period that we created those 55.5K jobs.
Caseloads increased in Illinois from 1,852,926 last year to 2,048,898 a 10.6& increase
To put it another way Illinois put more than three times the number of people on food stamps then they put people into jobs.
You should also note that not only have the food stamp caseload numbers gone up but the benefit dollar amount on a percentage basis indicates conditions are worsening. A 1% increase in people with a 1.1% increase in dollar for example.
Now I ask you — what kind of jobs are being created?
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:26 pm
Excellent point…Anonymous.
Comment by Louis Howe Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:34 pm
Minimum wage jobs aren’t meant to be careers. They are meant to be starter jobs. If there is a desire to raise “career track” wages, then there should be a separate “career track minimum wage” with a lower “Starter job track wage” for “starter jobs”.
Comment by titan Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:38 pm
Oh but look at the home sales numbers you say. Surely that’s a sign of recovery…isn’t it.
I thought I’ve read somewhere that the majority of recent home sales were done in all cash. Who has that kind of money, not the middle class. Real estate speculators and home flippers so I wouldn’t get too excited.
Furthermore the numbers are being revised as we speak..
New Home Sales Crater To Lowest Since October; Biggest Drop Since May 2010; Median Home Price At 6 Month Low
“And so the housing “recovery” comes to a screeching halt, which is not surprising as there never was a recovery to begin with. Moments ago cheerleaders of the second housing bubble were shocked to learn that in July a tiny 35K new houses were sold (with just 3K sold in the Northeast, and just 19K in the otherwise strong South), of which 13K houses were not even started. This translated into a puny 394K seasonally adjusted annualized sales, missing expectations of 487K by nearly a massive 100K, and in addition the June print was revised much lower from 497K to 455K (which back in July beat expectations of 484K and was trumpeted as the highest print since 2008 - so much for that). Yet one thing that did not change is that the median home sale price decline continued, and in July dropped to $257.2K down from $258.5. ”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-23/new-home-sales-crater-lowest-october-biggest-drop-may-2010-median-home-price-6-month
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:43 pm
==your argument that supporting a min wage increase without pushing for other things as well makes little sense.==
It makes perfect sense, unless your true goal is government revenues instead of actually helping poor people. What sense does it make to force employers to pay employees $10/hour while at the same time forcing those poor employees to pay income taxes on that $10/hour?
If you want to help government revenues, at the expense of poor people, you raise the minimum wage. If you want to help poor people, at the expense of government revenues, you stop taxing the poor people. Its not hard to understand the logic.
Using your example, yes a person making $1/hour more is a little better off, however after personal taxes its less that $.85, and don’t forget the other $.15 the employer has to send to the government that otherwise could’ve gone to the employee. That’s $.30/hour that goes to the government based on that minimum wage worker’s income. How does it make sense to take $.30 more per hour from the poor minimum wage worker, when you could more easily just not tax that minimum wage worker at all?
At $8.25 per hour minimum wage, if you were to eliminate all income and payroll taxes and let the employee keep that pay instead of the government taking it, that employee would end up making $11.02 per hour in Illinois, just by getting rid of the government’s income taxes. As you can see, if you want to help the working poor, it makes much more sense to stop taxing them than it does to raise the minimum wage. They’d be a lot better off making $2.77 more per hour than making $.85 more per hour.
Comment by Jeff Trigg Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:53 pm
..and finally..
US employers added 162,000 nonfarm jobs in July according to the government’s Establishment Data Survey, an anemic number considerably below predictions. However, a closer look reveals another serious problem.
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,” said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center quoted by McClatchy Washington Bureau. Hall was head of the US Bureau of Labor (BLS) Statistics from 2008 to 2012.
Citing the BLS Household Survey, Hall said that over the past six months 963,000 more people reported that they were employed while 936,000 of them reported they were in part-time jobs. Hall continued, “That is a really high number for a six-month period. I am not sure that has ever happened over six months before.”
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 3:54 pm
WRT: “Minimum wage jobs aren’t meant to be careers. They are meant to be starter jobs. ”
Tell it to the recent college grads that played by the rules with over 50% of them underemployed in positions that don’t even require a degree.
The above comment is typical of the “get an education” if you want a better job, a career” type.
What are you looking for a hand out they say. Looking for something for nothing. Oh these kids.
So upset over the welfare yet they stand up and defend the corporate welfare of the WalMart’s of the world.
Rather than raise the min. wage for those workers they prefer that we subsidize the executives bonuses and profits by awarding the poverty wage WalMart-like employees with food stamps.
They prefer that the do-nothing shareholders make a larger profit then the actual people doing the work!
What about that welfare? The corporate welfare?
Oh thank GOD that inflation is only REPORTED at under 2% eh? But wait…gas in Chicago just went up 0.30/gal IN ONE DAY the other day.
Have any kids going to college? That tuition sure has only been rising less then 2% over the last five years eh? haha..
Yeah inflation is only up 2% so don’t whine about Illinois 66% tax increase why inflation is tame. Parking meter rates in downtown Chicago have doubled. So take public transportation…but wait..how much did they raise CTA fares again? Less then 2$ right? Gimmie a break.
Government inflation numbers with the hedonistic adjustments. When steak becomes too expensive people switch to beef. When beef is too expensive take that out of the equation and use the price of fish. Then from fish to chicken..etc until you get to eating dirt. See that! Inflation is under control. All the food prices have gone up so people just switched to eating dirt!
That’s the game my friends.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 4:15 pm
I’m reminded of this..
Accretive Health to Create 650 Jobs in Chicago
November 9, 2010
CHICAGO - Accretive Health Inc. (NYSE:AH), a rapidly-growing, innovative, Chicago-based healthcare financial services company plans to hire 650 new employees at its new Accretive Health Processing Facility at 231 S. LaSalle St.
http://www.worldbusinesschicago.com/news/accretive-health-create-650-jobs-chicago
But then the fine print says this..
“The facility will be home to Accretive’s new B2B center that will employ 650 new full-time employees (offering full benefits and an average salary of $35,000) within ten years”
Seriously AVERAGE NOT MEDIAN wage of $35K/year within ten years! What are those “started jobs” that are not meant to be careers.
It goes on.
“Accretive’s new offices will call for a skilled workforce. The City of Chicago’s Community Development Commission approved TIF funding for job training and build-out at the new facility. Under the agreement, the company will hire 650 new employees at the new Processing Facility (200 within the first two years) and then will add 50-75 jobs each year over the next eight years. The 175 headquarters jobs will also remain in Chicago employing a total of 825 people. In return, the City will provide $6 million in TIF assistance, 80% of which will go toward job training skills for Chicagoans; the rest will defray build-out costs.
Accretive was also awarded EDGE tax credit from the State of Illinois, based on the number of people the company plans to hire.
Additionally, Accretive is currently hosting 40 Chicago Career Tech participants in the program’s fall class. The innovative program leverages public/private partnerships to create a new corps of highly-skilled Chicago professionals who utilize technology as a platform for new career opportunities.
The new facility is set to open early next year, and Accretive plans to start hiring for positions in the new facility as soon as possible.”
REMEMBER: we were told that they just could not find qualified people so they “partnered ” with the community colleges to provide their own custom training
THAT WAS NOV 2010 — NOW FAST FORWARD TO June 2013.
“… In 2012, of the approximate 225 CCT/SFC participants trained, 85 percent graduated with their Accretive Health medical reimbursement certificate. The other 25 percent sat for the American Health Information Management Association Certified Coding Associate (CCA), and of the 25, seven have sat for their Certified Coding Specialist credential and passed… ”
85% out of a class of 225 get their cert. and the other 25% the …wait that makes 110% someone call the auditors. Nevertheless we want to know how many of these people were hired by Accretive since they are now qualified to their standards.. The story goes on ..
” In 2012, of the approximate 225 CCT/SFC participants trained, 85 percent graduated with their Accretive Health medical reimbursement certificate. The other 25 percent sat for the American Health Information Management Association Certified Coding Associate (CCA), and of the 25, seven have sat for their Certified Coding Specialist credential and passed. ”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/chi-ugc-article-accretive-health-partners-with-the-city-of-ch-2013-06-12,0,4565213.story
Twenty-five people hired after buying into propaganda about lacking skills and taking classes. That’s less than 10% of the entire class enrollment isn’t it? This is suppose to be a success story? Gonna be hard to hire 650 people over ten years when your very own training provides you with only 25 a year is it not?
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Aug 23, 13 @ 4:43 pm