ILLINOIS WORKERS LOST GROUND. SPRINGFIELD PAID ITSELF TO GET AHEAD.

Illinois Politics| Business and Economy | Featured

September 18, 2026•8 min read

SPRINGFIELD CALLED IT AFFORDABILITY. YOUR PAYCHECK CALLED IT SOMETHING ELSE.

Illinois workers lost purchasing power, the state fell 13 places in adjusted wages and lawmakers gave themselves nearly $34,000 in raises. Now Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants four more years.

By Staff Writer | September 18, 2026

Springfield has spent years talking about affordability.

Illinois workers have spent those same years trying to afford Illinois.

They have watched raises disappear at the grocery store. They have opened property tax bills that demanded more from paychecks already stretched thin. They have paid more for housing, insurance, utilities and everyday necessities, only to hear state leaders return to the podium and promise that working families remain their highest priority.

The politicians kept saying the right words.

The paychecks kept telling a different story.

An Illinois Policy Institute analysis of federal wage and cost-of-living data found that inflation-adjusted hourly wages in Illinois declined by an average of 0.02 percent a year from 2018 through 2025.

Seven years passed. Illinois workers did not gain purchasing power.

They lost it.

The same analysis found Illinois was one of only seven states where real hourly wages declined during that period. Its adjusted wage growth ranked seventh-slowest in the nation.

Before Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office, Illinois had the country’s 13th-highest average hourly wage after adjusting for the cost of living.

By 2025, Illinois had fallen to 26th.

That is not progress slowed by difficult circumstances. That is half the country passing Illinois while the governor and lawmakers assured residents they were delivering for working families.

The rest of the Midwest faced inflation. It faced the pandemic. It faced supply shortages, higher interest rates and national economic uncertainty.

Yet, when Illinois was removed from the calculation, inflation-adjusted wages across the Midwest grew at a compound annual rate of 0.6 percent from 2018 through 2025.

The region moved forward.

Illinois stood still.

There was one group in Illinois that did not have to wonder whether its income would keep pace.

In June, Pritzker signed a state budget increasing the base salary for Illinois lawmakers to $101,450. That placed them among the four highest-paid state legislatures in the country.

Since Pritzker took office in January 2019, Illinois lawmakers have increased their own base salaries by nearly $34,000.

That total does not include leadership stipends, committee compensation or per diem payments that can push their earnings even higher.

Illinois workers watched inflation consume their raises.

Illinois lawmakers answered inflation by giving themselves more money.

“Every element of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year was thoroughly deliberated with the aim of achieving widespread affordability for all Illinoisans.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, June 1, 2026

Widespread affordability sounds reassuring from behind a podium.

It sounds considerably different to the worker whose paycheck purchases less than it did seven years ago.

It sounds different to the parent who removes items from the grocery cart before reaching the register.

It sounds different to the homeowner deciding which household expense can wait until the next pay period.

A Hunger Free America survey of 202 Illinois families earning less than $100,000 found that 83 percent had experienced higher prices for food and other necessities during the previous year. Fifty-nine percent said it had become more difficult to afford the quality and quantity of food their families needed.

More than half said the food they purchased did not last.

The struggle reached households earning between $75,000 and $100,000. Among those families, 77 percent reported higher food prices and 34 percent said they had greater difficulty purchasing the amount and quality of food they wanted.

Those are not abstract economic indicators.

Those are Illinois families saying the money runs out before the needs do.

“Low wages, not a lack of food, remain the principal cause of hunger in America.”
Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America

Pritzker and Democratic leaders describe the Fiscal Year 2027 budget as a direct response to those pressures.

The governor says it invests in housing, education, health care, hunger relief and medical debt forgiveness. The budget temporarily pauses a scheduled motor fuel tax increase, provides a limited back-to-school sales tax holiday and directs nearly $100 million toward food assistance programs.

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said conversations taking place around kitchen tables guided the General Assembly’s agenda.

“The results are a promise kept: A state budget that works for families’ budgets.”
House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch

That is Springfield’s argument.

Here is the problem.

A state budget cannot credibly be sold as an affordability rescue without acknowledging what happened to affordability under the people writing it.

Illinois workers fell from 13th to 26th in cost-adjusted hourly wages. Real wage growth ranked near the bottom nationally. More than 168,000 residents disappeared from the state’s net population count. Lawmakers increased their own base salaries by nearly $34,000.

Then they declared that the latest budget works for families.

For many Illinoisans, that is not a promise kept. It is a promise contradicted by their own bank accounts.

The governor’s budget office points to eight consecutive balanced budgets, pension payments, credit upgrades and new investments as evidence that Illinois is in a stronger financial position than it was when Pritzker took office.

Those accomplishments are part of the record.

So is the collapse in Illinois’ wage ranking.

So is the population loss.

So is the reality that most Midwestern states produced real wage growth while Illinois failed to do so.

And so is the unmistakable contrast between workers whose purchasing power stagnated and lawmakers who made certain their own compensation did not.

“Lawmakers forced residents and businesses to pick up the tab for their reckless spending.”
Bryce Hill, director of fiscal and economic analysis at the Illinois Policy Institute

Illinois’ population numbers suggest a growing number of residents are reaching their own conclusions.

Since 2018, Illinois has experienced a net loss of more than 168,000 people, according to an Illinois Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. The state ranked 48th in population growth during that period, while the rest of the Midwest grew by approximately 2.1 percent.

International migration has recently helped offset continued domestic losses. Without that international growth, Illinois’ population would have declined again in 2025.

People move for many reasons. Jobs, family, housing, retirement and weather all play a role. It would be simplistic to claim every moving truck crossing the state line represents a political protest.

But when tens of thousands of residents leave, purchasing power stagnates and the state falls 13 places in adjusted wages, the pattern cannot be waved away as coincidence or dismissed as partisan complaining.

Something is not working.

Pritzker is now seeking a third consecutive term. His campaign will ask voters to judge Illinois by balanced budgets, higher minimum wages, infrastructure investments, expanded social programs and improved credit ratings.

Voters must also judge him by what happened to their purchasing power while those policies were being celebrated.

The governor possesses a financial freedom unavailable to nearly every Illinois family.

In August, Capitol News Illinois reported that Pritzker had contributed more than $439 million to his gubernatorial campaign fund since launching his first campaign in 2017. That total does not include the $58 million he contributed to the 2020 campaign for a graduated income tax or separate money directed toward other political organizations and causes.

Pritzker can reach into his fortune and place another $25 million, $50 million or $65 million into his campaign when political circumstances demand it.

Illinois families do not have that option.

They cannot self-fund their way around inflation.

They cannot write a personal check to erase a property tax increase.

They cannot vote themselves a raise and send the bill to someone else.

They must live with the economy Springfield gives them.

That is what makes the approaching election more than a debate over statistics. It is a judgment on two very different Illinois experiences.

In one Illinois, lawmakers earn base salaries exceeding $100,000 after years of raises. A billionaire governor can spend hundreds of millions of dollars building and protecting a political operation without depending on ordinary donors.

In the other Illinois, families earning as much as $100,000 report struggling to buy enough food. Workers have gone seven years without meaningful growth in purchasing power. Residents continue to leave for states where they believe their money and opportunities may stretch further.

One Illinois writes the budget.

The other one lives under it.

Pritzker and legislative leaders can point to programs, investments and fiscal improvements. Those arguments deserve to be heard.

But they do not erase the central fact of the past seven years.

Illinois workers did not move forward.

Their lawmakers did.

Now the same governor, backed by the same political establishment and an extraordinary personal fortune, is asking voters for four more years.

This election will determine whether Illinoisans believe another term will finally deliver the affordability they have repeatedly been promised.

Springfield has already protected its own purchasing power.

The question is how much longer Illinois workers are expected to wait for theirs.