For over two years, the COVID-19 pandemic stressed nurses and tested their skills and stamina. Preexisting nursing shortages deepened, leading to heightened workloads and severe burnout among nurses. Now, in the aftermath of COVID, a new survey reveals a continuing crisis of nurses’ mental and physical well-being, patient care quality, and the overall public health […]
On June 24th of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade, upending a five decades-long precedent on women’s reproductive healthcare rights.Previous research has linked reproductive healthcare with improved outcomes for women and children.• The legalization of abortion reduced teen motherhood by 34 percent.• […]
The United States is currently facing a tight labor market, and Illinois is not immune. As of July 2022, there were 469,000 job openings in the state, or 1.6 per unemployed resident. At the same time, as of July 2022, total non-farm employment in Illinois was still down by about 80,500 workers (-1 percent) compared […]
In November 2022, voters will have the chance to vote on the Workers’ Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution, which would guarantee the fundamental right of workers to unionize and collectively bargain. The Workers’ Rights Amendment would prevent the passage of a state law or local ordinance “that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right […]
Registered nursing faces a crisis. For over two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has stressed nurses, tested their skills and stamina, and exacerbated labor shortages. Each of these factors have significant implications for standards of patient care within America’s health care industry.Results from a fall 2021 survey of more than 2,200 registered nurses in hospitals across […]
Fair workweek laws, also called predictive scheduling laws, have been implemented in Oregon and seven municipalities—including the City of Chicago—to protect workers from unstable scheduling practices. Implemented in June 2020, Chicago’s Fair Workweek Ordinance covers workers at large employers in seven essential and face-to-face industries: building services, health care, hotels, manufacturing, restaurants, retail trade, and […]