Tim Anderson

States, meanwhile, are feeling the fiscal and political pressure to improve disclosure in their programs that provide tax breaks and grants to businesses.

A compromise between business and labor groups in Kansas has led to the first overhaul of the state’s workers’ compensation system in nearly 20 years.

The story of the population and economic decline of some of the Midwest’s largest, historically most important cities did not begin in 2000 and will likely not end in 2010.  Nonetheless, data from U.S. Census 2010 are striking in showing the extent of the out-migration from many of this region’s central towns.

Currently, three states in the Midwest are among the nation’s 18 “ABC” states. The name refers to alcoholic beverage control, specifically the direct control that these jurisdictions retain over the distribution and sale of alcohol. In Ohio, the governor is pushing a plan that would transfer the liquor enterprise, and its profits, to JobsOhio.