Metro East Sun

Sen. Steve McClure (R-Jacksonville) says the increasing crime rate in Illinois had a role to play in businesses leaving so rapidly.

"It's the overall bad business climate. We need to work on reforming workman's comp reform and lower property taxes. On top of that, crime is out of control across the state and many of these businesses don’t feel safe being here right now," McClure said.

Billionaire Ken Griffin, formerly the wealthiest Illinois resident, recently announced that he has moved to Florida, and he's taking hedge fund giant Citadel and market-maker Citadel Securities with him, Market Watch reported. "Chicago will continue to be important to the future of Citadel, as many of our colleagues have deep ties to Illinois," Griffin wrote in a letter to employees. "Over the past year, however, many of our Chicago teams have asked to relocate to Miami, New York and our other offices around the world."

Caterpillar announced on June 14 that it is going to shift its headquarters from Deerfield, Illinois, to Irving, Texas, according to a press release. "We believe it's in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar's strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world," said Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby.

Boeing announced in May that it is transferring its headquarters from Chicago to a suburb of Washington, DC, NBC Chicago reported. "We are excited to build on our foundation here in Northern Virginia," Boeing President and Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said in a statement. "The region makes strategic sense for our global headquarters given its proximity to our customers and stakeholders, and its access to world-class engineering and technical talent."

Chief Executive magazine conducted a survey of around 700 business owners from every state and ranked Illinois 48th overall, meaning it is the third-worst state in the country for business, The Center Square reported. The only two other states that have ranked worse than Illinois are New York and California. Texas, Florida, and Tennessee were ranked as the top states for doing business. 

"We’re too corrupt. Our taxes are way too high. We have way too many regulations and we have massive debts, and that is plenty of reason enough for companies to not want to locate in Illinois, not to mention the state is shrinking in population so it's not a growth state to put your business in,” said Wirepoints president Ted Dabrowski.