Lake County Gazette

Springfield should be doing more to help struggling small businesses recover amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, according to state Rep. Chris Bos (R-Lake Zurich).

“We should be doing everything that we can do to help small businesses recover and grow here in Illinois, to rebuild local economies and create more opportunities for our residents,” Bos said in a post to Facebook.

The veteran lawmaker’s concern comes at a time when Illinois is lagging behind much of the rest of the country in its recovery.

While December proved to be a good month for small businesses in the vast majority of states, with Alignable’s December Road to Recovery Report concluding that 43% of U.S. small business owners reporting monthly revenues that matched or exceeded pre-COVID levels, the rate of recovery among small business owners in Illinois topped out at just 32%.

“What this does tell us overall is that Illinois is slower to recover than many other states in the country,” Alignable head of research Chuck Casto told AdvantageNews.com. 

With 68% of Illinois small businesses having yet to fully recover, most experts predict a change should be expected before the middle of 2023.

“Forty-four percent of those polled said they are worried about omicron and what will happen to their recoveries because many of them are just starting to feel some positive effects from December,” Casto added.

With Illinois being home to more than 1.2 small businesses and employing nearly half of the state’s workforce, fears over the government forcing shutdowns recently doubled over a month’s time, from 11% to 23% of those polled.

Illinois Policy Institute reports that over the last year, more small businesses have closed in Illinois than in any other Midwestern state except Michigan. With many of the governor’s mandates remaining in place, nearly 500,000 Illinoisans are out of work and the state is home to the highest unemployment rate in the Midwest as more than 35% of small businesses are shuttered.