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By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois economy again follows some of the national numbers.
University of Illinois economics professor Fred Giertz says the index – considering corporate earnings, personal income, and retail sales – is down slightly, from 105.5 to 105.3. Anything greater than 100 means growth.
“We are moving up at a lower rate. President Trump suggests we could move up to 3-4 percent growth rate. That happened for a short time. We are back now to the two percent range, pretty typical of the recovery from the recession in 2009. That’s not great, but it is certainly better than what a lot of people were fearing, which was an actual downturn.”
Most remarkable, says Giertz, is a state unemployment rate below four percent, lowest in almost a half century.
Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]