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Report Reveals Slight Setback in Economy
A measure of Illinois' economic health shows there's still a lot of room for improvement.

The Flash Index, a monthly report put out by the University of Illinois that takes into account corporate income, personal income and retail sales, shows the economy shrunk a little between March and April. Numbers over 100 reflect growth while numbers below that indicate contraction. The index for April dropped to 91 from 91.8 the previous month.

Flash Index author Fred Giertz, an economist at the U of I's Institute of Government and Public Affairs, says the decline is not a surprise.

"The kind of unusual thing that has happened in this recession is that productivity has to increase," Giertz said, "so businesses have become more efficient. As a consequence, when demand picks up and they have to produce more, they don't necessarily need to hire back all the workers they had before."

Giertz says the Flash Index's decline does not mean the state is falling deeper into recession; it means the recovery is slow.

The latest reading reverses a trend of gains that occurred over the past several months. Giertz points out that the state's unemployment rate has gone up while the national rate has dropped the past few months.

Illinois unemployment in March was 11.5 percent. The national rate was 9.7.
05 08 10 by Newsroom
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