By IL Radio Network
Champaign, IL – Illinois' economy is growing at the same slow rate as it was a month ago.
The flash index, published by the University of Illinois on the first of each month, is 102.3 - the same as last month.
Economist Fred Giertz, author of the monthly flash index, says the last time the flash index was under 100 - indicating economic contraction - was in 2001.
Giertz says the index staying the same is noteworthy because the index had been falling in recent months. This means that for one month, at least, the rate of economic growth in Illinois has stopped declining.
Giertz says you can't predict the economic future with certainty, and there are plenty of bad things that may yet happen, but he has expected all along that Illinois' economy would not go into recession, that the downturn would bottom out somewhere short of there and turn around, and that may be what is happening now, he says.
