The city got a pandemic lifeline from the feds and did nothing to shore up its finances for the long term.
Chicago continues to live up to its moniker “Second City” in at least one respect: It has the second-worst debt load of any large city in America—about $43,000 per taxpayer, or almost $40 billion in total. First place goes to New York City, but Chicago residents also have to deal with Illinois’s particularly high debts, which total $42,000 per taxpayer. Thus, a family moving to Chicago suddenly inherits about $85,000 in liabilities. By this measure, Chicago has by far the worst debt burden of any major city.
Chicago’s accumulating debt might be bearable if the city had low taxes. That would give it room to raise revenue and pay down some of its liabilities. But taxes in the Windy City already rank among the nation’s harshest. Chicago’s combined city and state taxes would eat up more than 12% of a U.S. median family’s income. Chicago’s taxation is also brutal on businesses. Chicago’s tax on industrial properties is nearly double the average of other cities. The property tax on office buildings, at more than 4% a year, is by far the worst of any major city and more than twice the average.
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Judge Glock is the director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal. This piece is adapted from a forthcoming piece at City Journal.
Photo by Fraser Hall/Getty Images
