Chicago, Illinois

Unemployment of 5.9% is lower than 6% of the 140 measured US cities.

Employment fell 3.1% over the past year, to 1,387,614 employed residents.

44% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 85% of measured US cities.

Median rent of $1,440 takes 22% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.3 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Population has fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 2,721,308 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

66% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 0.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 85°F and January a low of 19°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 34.4 inches.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today.

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding and earthquake.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

AreaProfile does not yet publish tax comparisons. No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, methodology transparency and update cadence, and the product rule is to omit a dimension rather than estimate it. The Area Score is calculated without a tax component and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Nothing on AreaProfile is individualized tax advice.

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 15 miles away.

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

Put Chicago side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated August 29, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.