Chamber Members: Welcome to the month of July in this crazy 2020 year. Today is minimum wage increase day. I think we’ve mentioned enough, but the wage floor increased to $10 today and will increase again on January 1, 2021 to $11 an hour. Also, a reminder that the...

Chamber Members: Today we say goodbye to the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program as the deadline for applications is tonight at 12 PM eastern. Our update today will recap a little about and the program and what the future may hold for a re-do. There are some other...

Chamber Members: Today marks the beginning of the first full week in Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois plan. Here is the link for the updated guidelines: https://dceocovid19resources.com/restore-illinois/restore-illinois-phase-4/ . Today’s update is going to focus on...

Chamber Members: Welcome to Phase 4. We made it! Please make sure that you are following all new and existing guidelines. Here is a link to the information that has been released following the approval of our phase 4...

Chamber Members: Can you believe that Christmas is six months away? Has time really flown by since the beginning of the pandemic, as it is kind of hard to believe we’re already getting ready for 4th of July Fireworks already? A quick reminder that June 30th is the...

Chamber Members: Half-way through the week and we’ve had a lot of information to read over already with Phase 4 guidelines and grant programs. Today is going to be a light update covering a few video conference opportunities and a little more. School Guidelines A lot...

Chamber Members: Happy Tuesday! We hope everyone has had a chance to see the announced changes for Phase 4. If not, you can find the document on our COVID-19 resource page (https://jolietchamber.com/2020/03/covid-19/) and also on the Department of Commerce and...

Chamber Members: It is the last week of Phase 3 here in Illinois as the Governor has stated today that all needs have been met for moving onto Phase 4 this Friday, June 26. We’ll share information throughout the week as it become available, but please see the initial...

Chamber Members: We hope you are ready to enjoy your weekend. Before so, here is a little information regarding Illinois unemployment numbers, utility bill relief, and additional follow-up info from the SBA. Don’t forget about the DCEO opening on Monday for grant...

Chamber Members: In case you missed the update from yesterday, Governor Pritzker made a big announcement for $900 million worth of grants spread over five programs. Today’s update is going to focus on two of those programs and we will work to get more info out as it...

Chamber Members: We hope that everyone and your organizations are doing well.  It has been quite an interesting three months during this pandemic. As we move towards phase 4, please let us know what topics and issues are of interest to you and how we can best be of...

Chamber Members: We are now ten days away from advancing into Illinois Phase 4. Although preliminary information was sent along with the phase announcements months ago, we’re hearing that we may see updated direction for this next phase by the end of this week. That...

Chamber Members: Welcome to the week of June 15. Today we have a list of news covering one of our most talked about topics. Additionally, more updates are below on signed bills and covid related reports. We hope you have a great week. Additional Small Business Aid...

Chamber Members: Hopefully, everyone is looking forward to the weekend. We’re about halfway through phase 3 with the next step coming up on June 26 at the earliest. We are watching to see if any changes are potentially announced a little early and will report out...

Chamber Members: Today is Thursday so that means unemployment report day on the national level. We also officially have a budget in Illinois for the next year as Governor Pritzker has signed the bill to make it official. See below for more news on PPP, Main Street...

Chamber Members: Thanks to those that joined us today for our COVID Town Hall Virtual Conference. If you missed it, the video recording is posted on our Coronavirus resource page along with all of our other video recordings, daily updates, and archived documents. Here...

Chamber Members: Today is going to be quick and light as far as the daily update goes. We are gearing up for our Town Hall Virtual Conference tomorrow at 1:00 pm to discuss the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and moving forward into phase four. Please join us for...

Chamber Members: Today is Monday, June 8 which means at the end of today our region will have completed day 11 of the 28-day period of Phase 3.  So, there are 17 days to go before the opening of Phase 4 as long as all the goals are met and continue on the same path....

Chamber Members: What a beautiful day to wrap up the week! We hope you are all looking forward to the weekend and the month ahead. We will be looking ahead as well as we present our next Virtual Conference next Wednesday, June 10 at 1 PM. It will be a town hall...

Chamber Members: It is Thursday, so that means our weekly announcement of unemployment numbers. We also have some exciting news to share about PPP changes. We’ll recap briefly as well what was talked about today on our virtual conference session with Senator...