Average Salary in Illinois

It depends which survey you use, which is why published figures vary so widely. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the mean annual wage across all Illinois occupations at $67,130 (May 2023 OEWS, the most recent complete statewide table), while the quarterly census of employment and wages shows an average weekly wage of $1,662 for Q1 2025 — roughly $86,400 annualized. The two differ because the weekly figure includes bonuses and stock compensation that the occupational survey excludes. Median household income, a different measure again, is $83,211.

$83,211 according to the 2024 American Community Survey one-year estimates, slightly above the national median. Household income counts every earner in the home, so it runs well above individual earnings — Illinois per capita income in the same survey was $46,937. Household income is the better measure for cost-of-living comparisons; individual wage data is the better measure for judging a job offer.

For a single person, $70,000–$90,000 is comfortable across most of the state, and takes home roughly $61,150–$67,690 after tax at the top of that range. Chicago and the North Shore suburbs push the comfortable threshold higher; downstate metros such as Peoria, Rockford and Springfield stretch the same money considerably further. For a household, clearing the $83,211 median puts you above half of Illinois families.

Illinois runs slightly ahead. On the quarterly census measure, the Illinois average weekly wage of $1,662 in Q1 2025 was about 4.6% above the national $1,589. The gap is driven almost entirely by the Chicago metropolitan area — Cook County's average weekly wage of $1,930 is more than 20% above the national figure, while much of downstate Illinois sits below it.

The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metropolitan area had a mean hourly wage of $35.28 in May 2025, about 5% above the national mean of $33.54 — roughly $73,400 a year at full-time hours. Management occupations average $72.18 an hour in the metro and legal occupations $71.28. Cook County's average weekly wage across all industries was $1,930 in Q1 2025.

Around $32.27 across all occupations on the BLS occupational survey (May 2023, the latest complete statewide table), against a national mean of about $33.54 in May 2025. Private-sector average hourly earnings from the monthly employment survey were higher at roughly $36.60 in July 2026 — a different survey covering a different population, which is why the two numbers do not match.

Physician specialties top the state pay distribution, as they do nationally — cardiologists, anesthesiologists and surgeons all clear $400,000 in mean annual wages. Outside medicine, the BLS statewide table puts chief executives at $281,460, lawyers at $178,380, financial managers at $173,210 and computer and information systems managers at $163,930. Illinois's concentration of financial services, law and corporate headquarters in Chicago is what sustains those figures.

State employee pay is public record. The Illinois Comptroller publishes a searchable salary ledger covering State of Illinois employees, and the state's ITAP and agency payroll listings carry job-title and department detail. Those figures are gross salary before any withholding — to see what a given state salary is actually worth in take-home pay, run it through the calculator on this page, since state employees are taxed exactly like private-sector workers at the same 4.95%.

At the $67,130 statewide mean, a single filer takes home about $52,733 a year — $4,394 a month — after an effective tax rate of 21.4%. A married couple filing jointly at the $83,211 median household income keeps roughly $67,101. Enter your own salary in the calculator on this page for a precise figure.