Institute of Government & Public Affairs

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended everyday life in Illinois and across the nation. There is great uncertainty about the depth and duration of the disruption that the pandemic has caused. We know that public servants throughout the state are spending every waking moment responding to the immediate, public health crisis. One way the IGPA can help is by providing them with evidence-based, objective information as they face the difficult choices ahead.

At the request of U of I System President Tim Killeen, IGPA assembled more than four dozen interdisciplinary faculty experts from all three System universities to assess COVID-19’s effects on the state. Each group is collaborating on a series of economic modeling activities, data analyses and syntheses of impact.

Members of the task force stand ready to help consult with state and local officials and provide any information they can to assist. A link to the task force roster is on the left side of this page. This page is updated frequently as the task force continues its work.

For more information, contact: IGPA Director Robin Fretwell Wilson at wils@uillinois.edu.

Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group: Report 4

The Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group's fourth report re-examines the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had state government revenue in Illinois. The report finds that the impact of the pandemic has not been as severe on state revenue as had been projected early on.

Policy Spotlight 7: An Unfolding Crisis in the Satisfaction and Supply of Teachers in Illinois

This Policy Spotlight examines the impact the pandemic has had on teachers and school administrators in our state.

Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group - Report 3

The Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group's third report examines the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on small businesses in Illinois. The report compares what has happened in Illinois with what's happened in bordering states.

Policy Spotlight 6: Ongoing Expert Advice on Pandemic Policies

This Policy Spotlight analyzes responses from several Pandemic Stress Indicator Expert Panel surveys, referred to in the report as “waves,” conducted over the summer of 2020.

Policy Spotlight 5: Mail-In Voting

This Policy Spotlight looks at some of the pros and cons of voting by mail as well as voters’ perceptions of it across the country. The authors suggest steps Illinois officials can take to help ensure voter confidence in the November election.

Policy Spotlight 4: Pandemic Behind Bars

This Policy Spotlight explores the impact of the COVID-19 in the state’s prisons and jails and on the communities where they are located. It examines cases of correctional facilities across the country that have become hotspots for COVID-19 infections and compares with the situation in Illinois, where the confirmed rate of COVID-19 cases in some correctional settings is significantly higher than the rate in the state’s general population.

This post was updated July 6, 2020.

Policy Spotlight 3: Child Care

This Policy Spotlight examines how the pandemic is affecting child care centers and family child care providers, who offer care in their homes. It also documents the financial assistance from the state and federal governments that has been available for providers so far and makes some policy suggestions.

Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group - Report 2

The Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group's second report delves into the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the employment picture in Illinois. The report finds that the current recession differs from past ones in key ways. Perhaps the biggest difference is the continued public health threat COVID-19 presents, which might cause Illinois residents to continue to limit their economic activity.

Policy Spotlight 2: Children at Risk

This second in our series of Policy Spotlights focuses on child abuse and neglect. There has been a dramatic decrease in calls to the state's hotline since the governor issued his first stay-at-home order in March. April's call volume was just 47 percent of the volume from April 2019. The spotlight makes several suggestions for ways to improve monitoring of vulnerable children during this pandemic.

Healthcare Workforce Impact Group

This report presents a high-level summary of the current and expected impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare workforce and makes a series of recommendations about how to minimize the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers and their families in Illinois, now and over time.

Read the report.

Policy Spotlight 1: Visualizing Vulnerability

This first Policy Spotlight focuses on helping Illinois develop a systematic understanding of what the pandemic has meant for people’s lives, so these human costs can also be a part of any decision-making processes, along with public health information and broader economic data. The spotlight, which is the first in an ongoing series, is the result of collaboration between IGPA and the Urban Data Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It incorporates maps that more clearly identify vulnerabilities in Ilinois, both to the virus and to the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic.

Read the report.

Community and Family Resilience Impact Group

This report, from the Community and Family Resilience Impact Group, examines the strain that COVID-19 pandemic is putting on communities and families in Illinois and has some suggesgtions for how policymakers can help promote community cohesion and family resilience in the face of the crisis.

Read the report.

Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group - Report 1

This first report from the Economic and Fiscal Health Impact Group is intended to identify fiscal pressure points in a timely enough manner that the information can be useful to policymakers currently working on the state’s budget. The impact group plans a series of reports that suggest potential policy approaches for state and local governments for coping with the pandemic.