Illinois is facing a bleak outlook as state policies stagnate the economy and drive residents to leave en masse. Pritzker’s budget address neither sheds light on the crisis nor offers any solution
Governor JB Pritzker’s budget address is an annual work of fiction, and this year is no different. It paints a false picture of a thriving Illinois that has made major progress under Pritzker’s leadership, despite what he portrays as serious headwinds from the demonized Trump administration, which he casts as both the primary cause of any challenges he is willing to admit and an existential threat to the state’s future. In reality, Illinois’ economic struggles and continued exodus of residents are overwhelmingly of its own making.
Since Pritzker became governor in 2019, the Illinois state budget has grown $16.7 billion, an increase of over 40 percent. His current budget proposal adds $878 million in new spending while raising another $589 million by taxing social media companies and casinos, bringing to 58 the number of tax and fee hikes since he took office. The budget is absent any spending reforms while so called budgetary savings are nothing more than smoke and mirrors as the federal government is actually doing the heavy lifting.
Illinois Policy Institute's (IPI) analysis of the budget points out that $200 million in “savings” at the Department of Healthcare and Family Services and $119 million at the Department of Human Services reflect technical adjustments rather than real policy restraint or meaningful agency cuts. According to IPI much of the claimed human services “reserves” come from hiring lags, reduced overtime and lower caseloads. These are routine variances when spending comes in below projections, not policymakers reducing programs, restructuring agencies, or attacking underlying cost drivers.
Illinois’ weak economy and outmigration
Moody’s and other analysts confirm Illinois remains in deep economic trouble, no matter how aggressively the governor spins his record. Below‑average population trends, deep‑rooted fiscal problems, persistent outmigration, and a shrinking tax base all contribute to a bleak outlook that shows up clearly in the state’s anemic economic performance and demographic data.
⁃ Illinois has suffered long‑term economic underperformance, with real GDP growth of about 7.9 percent since 2019, compared with a 17.6 percent national average, ranking it 46th among the 50 states.
⁃ Illinois has seen no net private‑sector job growth since 2019; the only net gains have been in the public sector, and the state actually lost a net 1,700 jobs in 2025 while the nation added 584,000.
⁃ The hardest hit sectors in the state were retail trade, which lost 17,600 positions, and manufacturing, which shed another 9,300 jobs.
⁃ Illinois ended 2025 with nearly 302,000 people unemployed. Job openings are down by 100,000 since September 2025.
⁃ Illinois’ unemployment rate remains above the national average while labor‑force participation slipped to 63.8 percent by late 2025. Over 100,000 residents have left the workforce compared with pre‑pandemic levels.
⁃ Illinois has lost about 1.6 million residents to domestic outmigration since 2000, trailing only California and New York; Chicago’s population is has fallen its lowest in a century while half of Illinois counties have lost population.
⁃ Illinois is the nation’s second‑biggest loser of households ages 26–35 and third among those ages 35–45 earning more than $200,000, with average adjusted gross income for those higher‑income out‑migrants approaching $700,000.
Population displacement
Pritzker points to a recent uptick in the state’s population as proof that his policies are working, but a closer look shows this “growth” is an unhealthy displacement, not a sign of broad‑based prosperity. Illinois’ population grew by 16,108 residents in 2025 thanks almost entirely to an influx of about 44,752 people migrating from other countries, while more than 40,000 Illinoisans moved to other states. Without high international migration Illinois would still be shrinking as data shows the state near the bottom nationally for keeping its own residents.
More than 1.6 million residents have left Illinois since 2000, and IRS and Census data show the state consistently loses residents and income to other states each year. The Pew Research Center estimates Illinois is home to roughly 550,000 unauthorized immigrants, about half of whom live in the Chicago metropolitan area. Most troubling, Illinois is losing higher‑income taxpayers while attracting lower‑income and often publicly subsidized newcomers: the income gap between those leaving and those arriving has widened dramatically, from $5,519 in 2010 to $37,922 in 2022.
Illinois’ current flight of residents has nothing to do with Trump‑era federal policies; it is the direct product of state leadership’s self‑proclaimed “progressive” agenda of higher taxes, chronic deficits, stagnant growth, and accelerating out‑migration. As middle‑ and upper‑income residents depart, Illinois appears determined to replace them with publicly subsidized migrant populations while using gerrymandered political maps to preserve one‑party dominance and spending, with estimates of state and local costs for migrant‑related services running into the billions of dollars.
First in spending, first in debt, last in equity
Despite Illinoisans having the highest combined state and local tax burdens in the country — roughly 50 percent above the national average — Illinois ranks near the bottom in measures of economic opportunity and equity. This is the result of an agenda that prioritizes expanding government over a creating a pro‑growth climate for families and businesses. Public sector employment has been essentially the only net source of job growth since Pritzker took
office, and Illinois’ unfunded public employee pension liability remains the nation’s highest at roughly $221 billion, 147 percent higher than second ranked California and larger than all neighbor states combined.
Pritzker likes to tout recent bond‑rating upgrades and modest population growth as evidence of his “effective stewardship,” but those claims crumble under scrutiny. Illinois has held the lowest overall bond rating of any state for 13 consecutive years and even after recent upgrades it remains at or near the bottom of the 50 states. The upgrades themselves were driven largely by massive one‑time federal COVID‑related aid and temporary revenue which totaled $54 billion for both state and local government operations alone. This included $14 billion for the state alone.
Rating agencies assess creditworthiness and default risk based on an issuer’s ability to repay principal and interest on time, and Illinois looked better on paper because Washington temporarily propped it up. ARPA and other federal funds were used for “revenue replacement” and to stabilize the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, materially improving liquidity and near‑term balance‑sheet metrics, and allowing early repayment of COVID‑era borrowing.
Fraud, mismanagement, and hidden costs
Illinois, along with California and Minnesota are poster children for fraud and inefficiency in its pandemic‑era spending and social programs. Illinois Auditor General found that from 2020 to 2022 the Illinois Department of Employment Security overpaid unemployment benefits by roughly $5.24 billion, including billions in fraudulent or otherwise improper claims. Rather than take full responsibility, Pritzker downplayed the scale of the failure by pointing out that other states — specifically California — also suffered massive fraud, effectively normalizing the fraud.
At the same time, a 2025 special audit of Illinois’ state‑funded health benefits for noncitizen seniors and adults found that those programs cost more than $1.6 billion through mid‑2024 — over triple original projections — with additional hundreds of millions expected in 2025 that were not included in the initial audit window. Lawmakers were effectively bypassed as cost overruns forced the administration to reshuffle funds and seek belated appropriations. These problems imposed a heavy burden on taxpayers and underscore how little control the administration exercised over programs
Pritzker’s attitude toward transparency and accountability is even more troubling when it comes to basic financial reporting. During his tenure, Illinois has failed to meet its statutory deadline for publishing the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report every year, with the most recent reports being months — and in some cases years — late. As of February 18, 2026, the cumulative statutory delay in issuing ACFRs during the Pritzker administration totals 1,810 days. When audited financials arrive more years late, lawmakers and taxpayers are effectively making budget decisions in the dark.
This deliberate failure to provide timely, legally required financial transparency mirrors the behavior of other powerful institutions, such as the Chicago Teachers Union, that resist scrutiny of their finances and operations. Chronic late financial reports and recurring audit findings signal a government that refuses to give Illinoisans reliable information about how their money is being spent. When basic financial disclosure breaks down, accountability collapses, and residents are left paying for a system that systematically hides its true fiscal condition.
Failed leadership, misplaced blame
The root of Illinois’ problems lies in the state’s progressive leadership and policy choices, both in Chicago and in Springfield, not in the Trump administration or any other convenient foil. While there are plenty of reasons to debate or oppose Trump‑era policies, no federal initiative from his administration created Illinois’ pension crisis, its sky‑high tax burden, its chronic outmigration, or its culture of late reporting and mismanagement; those are homegrown failures produced by progressive lawmakers and the agenda they have imposed on the state.
Yet we can expect Governor Pritzker to continue deflecting from his own record, doubling down on anti‑Trump rhetoric and blame‑shifting while using his immense personal fortune to persuade voters that Illinois is “leading the nation” and moving in the right direction. With a gerrymandered, veto‑proof legislature and a congressional delegation in which Democrats hold 14 of 17 seats — many of them dependent on Pritzker’s financial largesse — there is little reason to expect meaningful dissent or serious course correction from within the dominant party.
