Quarter Three retail sales data for 2025 from the Illinois Department of Revenue have been released. Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer breaks down the numbers for both Galesburg and Monmouth:
“Both Galesburg and Monmouth are showing really, really strong tax receipt growth in Quarter Three of 2025 compared to Quarter Three in 2024. So strong in fact that the growth we are seeing om sales tax collections is the highest growth I have seen since the 2020 to 2021 comparison. Galesburg had a 16.6 percent growth and Monmouth fared even better with a 25.39 percent growth. That led me down a rabbit hole of how to explain this data. We have to factor in inflation; obviously, if prices of goods and services go up, then the sales taxes are based on those prices and so you get more sales taxes if prices go up. The official inflation reading form the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has inflation at only 2.7 percent over the last twelve months.”
Additionally, Springer reports that latest unemployment data released from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is from September of 2025, is sitting at 5.1 percent for Knox and Warren Counties.
