Consumer Protection
Illinois enacts landmark bill to prevent predatory lending
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed the Predatory Loan Prevention Act into law — endorsed by Illinois PIRG and more than 50 consumer, labor, community and civil rights organizations — which will institute a 36 percent interest rate cap on consumer loans. Too often, payday loans trap borrowers in cycles of debt through excessive and predatory interest rates.
Consumer Protection
Exelon split is a good first step toward checking utility power in Illinois
Energy company Exelon's plans to separate its regulated utility business from its customer-facing power supply business will help curb the conflicts of interest that helped its subsidiary ComEd accumulate unchecked political influence in Springfield. But our state must do more to fully reform utility political power and its costly consequences for consumers.
Tell Whole Foods: Move Beyond Plastic
Whole Foods has led on plastics in the past, but the company recently got an "F" in a report by As You Sow for failing to tackle plastic pollution. Tell Whole Foods' CEO to get rid single-use plastics in its stores.
COVID-19
Nursing Home Safety During COVID
Ongoing research by U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group, analyzing government data, shows that too many of the 1.3 million Americans residing in the nation’s 15,000 nursing homes are at risk due to dangerous shortages of personal protective equipment and/or staff.
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Illinois PIRG is your advocate for the public interest, speaking out for healthier, safer, more secure lives for all of us.
News & Research
Blog Post
Millions of Americans stand on the wrong side of the digital divide. It’s time we fix that.
Blog Post
When consumers don’t have time to wait for authorized repair, they shouldn’t be faulted for finding alternatives.
Blog Post
House Bill 1472, House Floor Amendment 1 is complex, sophisticated legislation, but can be summarized simply: it doubles down on the worst policies passed during ComEd’s corrupt scheme, and makes them even worse.
Report | Illinois PIRG Education Fund
According to a review of data from iFixit, which describes itself as the “repair guide for everything, written by everyone,” 2.2 million unique users from Illinois went to www.iFixit.com to look up how to repair something in 2020.
News Release | Illinois PIRG Education Fund
Illinois PIRG released a new report Friday, “What are Illinoisans Fixing?” which compiles data from the popular repair instruction website iFixit.com about what items people in Illinois were fixing the most in 2020. The report also takes a closer look at the broader repair ecosystem, including barriers that make it harder than it should be to perform basic repairs and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the things we were fixing.
RESOURCE
Coronavirus update
In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, we’ve taken steps for all of our staff to work remotely for safety reasons. But rest assured, we’ll keep advocating for you as we work for a healthier, safer world.
Learn more about how we can work together to address the COVID-19 pandemic.