State keeps stacking costs on manufacturers

Running a small manufacturing business in Illinois means you pay three times before you ever produce a product: once in taxes, once in compliance and once for a legal climate that invites abusive lawsuits.

At my metal finishing company in Addison, we’ve weathered inflation, supply chain disruptions and a persistent workforce shortage. Those challenges are national. What makes Illinois harder is what our own state government piles on top.

We carry some of the highest taxes in the country and a regulatory red tape web that forces small businesses like mine to spend time and money on paperwork instead of production.

Then there’s the cost nobody itemizes: lawsuit abuse. Illinois counties, led by Cook County just east of us, routinely appear on the American Tort Reform Foundation’s Judicial Hellholes list, and that reputation reflects reality. When the legal system rewards excessive litigation, small businesses pay for it in legal fees, inflated insurance premiums and settlements that have nothing to do with the merits of a claim.

Those costs don’t disappear. Lawsuit abuse amounts to a hidden “tort tax” of $2,004 per Illinois resident every year and costs the state more than 214,000 jobs. For a manufacturer trying to hire and retain skilled workers, that’s not an abstraction. It’s one more reason talent and investment keep leaving for states that don’t treat employers as targets.

If lawmakers want manufacturing to survive here, the fix is straightforward: lower the tax burden, streamline regulations and restore balance to our courts. Until they do, Illinois businesses will keep paying the stacked costs of a state that makes it harder to build things.

Mark Oryszczak

Addison