This summer, Chicago’s budget leaders will reveal our city’s fiscal outlook. Here’s what we know: Chicago’s budget deficit will be significant, and the debate will follow a familiar script of cuts on one side and new taxes on the other.
But that debate will miss a central issue: growth. Chicago must make growth — not just cuts and taxes — the centerpiece of its public policy strategy. As we move forward, every major decision on taxes, regulation, workforce and infrastructure should be evaluated through a simple lens: Does this make it easier or harder to invest, hire and grow in Chicago?
Growth is the foundation for everything we want our city to be: safer, more equitable, more affordable, more stable and more competitive.
Growth also generates the revenue that allows government to invest in public safety, schools and infrastructure without constantly returning to the same well of higher taxes and fewer resources.
Achieving growth relies on businesses of all sizes expanding where there’s confidence and capacity, leading to more jobs and a broader tax base. And with it, expanded opportunity, increased employment, stronger fiscal health and communities that thrive.
We already have assets other cities could only dream of: unmatched transportation infrastructure, two international airports, a highly educated workforce, world-class universities, a diverse economy and a strategic location that makes us a hub for commerce and innovation. The question isn’t whether Chicago can compete. The question is whether we’re putting forward policies necessary to win an increasingly competitive race.
But by not focusing on growth, Chicago has been falling behind. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows our peer metropolitan regions such as Atlanta, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth outpacing us in economic growth. And in 2023, the Chicago region lagged behind the nation as whole in real gross domestic product growth at 1.4%, compared to 2.9%, according to data from the BEA.
Meanwhile, property tax bills in Cook County have surged in recent years, with many homeowners and businesses seeing double-digit increases and some facing spikes of 20% to 25% in a single year.
These are not abstract statistics. They are bright red signals that we are falling behind in an increasingly competitive national economy.
Taxing a shrinking base raises costs for families and small businesses, causing them to spend less and pass on higher prices, or leave outright. This cycle repeats until it becomes unsustainable.
Make no mistake. Our fiscal pressures are real. But the reflex to close budget gaps through short-term and short-sighted solutions falls short of what we need to grow and thrive, especially when it’s our employers being used as targets.
If we’ve learned anything from past budget discussions, it’s that taxing hiring — the defeated (for now) head tax — disincentivizes hiring, which is the very thing Chicago needs more of. And taxing without any connection to growth sends the message to businesses, entrepreneurs and employers large and small to look somewhere else to invest.
Breaking that cycle means advancing pro-growth policies that create the conditions for businesses to invest, expand and hire here. It means ensuring families have access to well-paying jobs and the ability to build a stable life. And it means giving our region the capacity to fund the public services we all rely on without overburdening the very people and employers driving our economy.
For our part, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is doubling down on our commitment to growth. We just launched Grow Chicago, a pro-growth policy initiative with the simple vision of giving local businesses a voice and promoting economically sustainable policies that create jobs, support families and communities, and ensure long-term prosperity.
We have a tough road ahead of us with hard choices along the way. The question is: Will we ensure that growth is at the center of the public policy decisions that are shaping the future of our local economy?
How we answer will determine whether Chicago will be the global leader we can and should be.
Jack Lavin is president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
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