Average Salary in Illinois (IL)

Illinois's $78,433 median household income ranks in the upper half of US states, but the state's story over the last decade has been defined by slow outmigration — Illinois has lost population almost every year since 2014. Chicago anchors the economy and holds most of the high-income jobs, while much of downstate Illinois has closer economic ties to the Rust Belt than to the finance-and-tech cluster in the Loop. The flat 4.95% state income tax is unusual for a state of Illinois's size; a 2020 referendum that would have replaced it with graduated brackets failed at the ballot box, leaving the flat rate in place. Property taxes are among the highest in the country — effective rates above 2% in Cook County — and that single fact explains much of the outmigration. The $14/hour minimum wage is well above the federal floor and is indexed to reach $15 on the schedule set by the 2019 Lifting Up Illinois Working Families Act. Chicago remains one of the largest financial hubs in the country outside New York, with the CME Group, major bank back-offices, and a growing private-equity footprint. Manufacturing (Caterpillar, Deere) and healthcare (University of Chicago Medicine, Rush, Northwestern Medicine) round out the top industries. Breakdown follows.