Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
10 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Scoff all you want, but Chicago and IL are effectively broke – they both keep spending far more than they have. So squeezing more from taxpayers in the upper income and businesses is the only way to try to get more $$$. Look in the mirror if you voted for Biden, Pritzker, Johnson or any other leftist Democrat – this is what they do.
But a 2023 $100,000 household income is barely achieving “middle-income” by US middle-class lifestyle expectations in a comparatively high cost-of-living city as Chicago. Try to live on $60,000/year take-home pay in Chicago, as a four person household, and tell me whether you feel “upper-class”, or really just “barely making it lower-middle middle class”.
Household income of $100,000+ places family squarely in middling-income middle-class camp, not by any means only targeting high-achiever wealthy folks, certainly not only white-collar upper-middle-income. “High income” household demographic is probably most significantly sheltered from new taxes, with ability to shift primary home address elsewhere out of Chicago or even out-of-state for many new tax policies. CPD and CFD-supported households earn more than that; most households supported by trades-union folks and government agency employees earn more too. Seems only underemployed recent liberal-arts college-grads and low-wage/no-wage households will be relieved from implied new tax programs promised by Mayor Johnson’s advisory group.… Read more »
Yes, you are correct, but you’re not recognizing that large numbers of Brandon’s voters live off $60k or less. Per capita income in most city neighborhoods is below the statewide average. Only five chicago neighborhoods has a per capita income greater than the state average. Chicago’s poor, of which there are many, live paycheck to paycheck at best, hustling, taking, grabbing, doing whatever they can to survive. To someone supporting a household of two kids with a $22.00 an hours SEIU job, the $100,000 threshold is most certainly rich, with that kind of income, they believe that’s rich, because they… Read more »
Like any any other gutter rat socialist — BJ sees theft as a means to consolidate power
The majority of city workers make well over +$100gs a year is salaries and who knows what in guaranteed $benefits$ (the rest of us chumps could only dream). They are the upper-class. They are the “community dis-inverters”.
Good idea, chase out the high-income earners and job creators. Texas and Florida look out lots more people from Illinois on the way.
He must be getting paid off by Texas or Florida. Which is where a lot of Chicagoans wind up.
Add u p all the freebies the free state army gets and you might be surprised at its pseudo income.
Chicago has two dozen neighborhoods with per capita income less than $20,000 and nearly all of them, except for five (LP, LV, loop, south loop, RN), have per capita incomes less than the statewide average of $56,000. There’s a two neigborhoods with per capita incomes less than $10,000 (Riverdale, Fuller Park). To the people in these communities, $100,000 a year sounds like A LOT (despite 42% of the city’s households, not per capita, earning over $100,000+). They see what you have, they can’t barely read or write, and in many neighborhoods like Gage Park or Hermosa or New City, they… Read more »
And this is what I think is what is Chicago’s major problem – they have a massive underclass of uneducated and poor people who want what you have and they vote for whomever promises to give it to them. This has been a decades long problem that gets incrementally worse and has culminated in Chicago’s election of a communist by a bare majority of voters. Decades of poor schools, rampant crime in communities that refuse to cooperate with the state to prosecute criminals (snitches get stitches), the financialization of everything has lead to massive gains in upper middle class while… Read more »
Don’t forget that many seemingly low-income households actually operate on unreported cash income from manual labor, cash-based home-businesses, and/or illegal activity. Many low-income neighborhood residents nonetheless have late-model cars, designer merchandise, and nice home interiors.
Yep and alot of those ladies work nights!
Actually, the predatory among them seem to “visit” north side neighborhoods.
Excellent summary by the Policy Institute. The breadth of this socialist anti-capitalism package is breathtaking. The mayor’s cabal has clearly spent a a lot of time trying to figure out how to screw successful people in every imaginable way. And to think that the only bulwark against some of this madness is the Illinois legislature and JB. When the federal handouts run out in a few months, Lord help us all.
Well you could take a page put of Ken Griffins book……
A couple with two city workers, say a fireman and a teacher, easily make over $100,000 per year. Are they rich? How many teachers and other city workers make over $100,000 per year individually? Might have a revolt by city employees.
Mayor Johnson was recently overheard asking one of his new appointees to hand him another wooden stake to drive into the heart of Chicago.