As the state's unemployment rate continues to climb, researchers from the Heartland Alliance's Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP) say that an increasing number of Illinois households are now teetering on the brink of poverty.

From Progress Illinois:

As the state's unemployment rate continues to climb, researchers from the Heartland Alliance's Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP) say that an increasing number of Illinois households are now teetering on the brink of poverty.

With 25 percent of the country's workers earning meager wages, it's no surprise that one-fifth of all workers are only a job loss away from impoverishment, as the Chicago-based nonprofit reports. What's perhaps most alarming about MAIP's findings is the toll that such a spike could have on the Midwest, where the poverty rate has grown four times as fast as the rest of the nation over the past eight years.

With that in mind, the Illinois legislature formed the Commission on the Eradication of Poverty last spring. The Heartland Alliance hopes their new research helps the commission quantify the problem and then get at the root causes.