Finance Decoder Report

Chicago's Fiscal
Health: Decoded

A city that can't pay its bills can't invest in its future. Strong Towns calls this the solvency principle. The charts below show how Chicago has struggled to stay solvent, making commitments for decades while leaving the next generation to pay for them.

Data: 2003–2025 via Chicago Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports · City government only

The Finance Decoder & #DoTheMath

Strong Towns Chicago's #DoTheMath initiative uses the Finance Decoder to chart 20+ years of city financial data. We're not prescribing specific fixes here. The goal is to give everyday Chicagoans the context to ask sharper questions of their elected officials. Every budget, project, and policy should be able to answer these three:

01
Sustainability
"Can Chicago keep providing the services it provides today a generation from now?"
02
Flexibility
"If something unexpected hits (a recession, a disaster, a spike in costs), does Chicago have room in the budget to respond?"
03
Vulnerability
"How much of Chicago's budget depends on money from the state or federal government?"

When a city's finances are clear, leaders can plan ahead: investing in transit, housing, and parks on a predictable schedule. Transparent local accounting makes that possible. Without it, you get what Chicago has now: repeated credit downgrades, budget gaps closed with borrowing, and surprise tax hikes.

How did we get here?

Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn argues that cities go broke for one core reason: they build things that cost more to maintain than they'll ever produce in revenue. Chicago is no exception. Here's how the pattern plays out, and what Strong Towns says the alternative looks like:

▸ Cities build more than they can maintain

After World War II, American cities spread out with wide roads, parking lots, and low-density development, what Strong Towns calls “The Suburban Experiment.” That growth pays off right away, then costs more to maintain than it ever returns, so the usual answer is more new development to chase the next round of revenue.

Chicago ran a version of this on itself. Its population peaked at 3.6 million in 1950. It cleared neighborhoods for expressways and rewrote its zoning to keep new density out. Growth went to the suburbs instead, cutting Chicago from about two-thirds of the region’s residents to under a third. The pipes did not leave with them: about 900,000 fewer people now maintain the same 9,000-plus miles of water and sewer mains.

That left streets, water pipes, sewers, and streetlights deteriorating for decades. New projects come with a groundbreaking and a ribbon cutting. A repaving schedule comes with neither, which makes upkeep the easiest thing to postpone.

▸▸ Short-term fixes create long-term problems

When money got tight, leaders turned to quick patches: selling off public assets, borrowing to cover today's bills, and pushing costs into the future. Each "fix" created bigger problems down the road.

The pattern did not stop with the old deals. The FY2026 budget authorized roughly $1.8 billion in new borrowing, including about $450 million to cover operating costs, along with debt issued for police misconduct settlements and firefighter back pay.

Economists call this temporal discounting: tomorrow's problem always feels less urgent than today's.

▸▸▸ Pensions followed the same pattern, at massive scale

For decades, city leaders put less money into retirement funds than they knew was needed, because the bill wouldn't come due until later. Promise benefits now, skip the payments, and assume future growth will cover the gap. When it doesn't, the city borrows more or cuts services to make up the difference. The result is roughly $36.4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities as of the end of 2025, the single largest item on the city's balance sheet.

The city has started paying more than the statutory minimum, roughly $689 million in extra contributions since 2023. Measured against the amount its own actuaries say is required each year, Chicago put in 27% of that bill in 2016 and 85% in 2025. That is a different measure from how funded the plans are; paying less than the full bill is part of why the funded ratio is still 28%. That is real progress, and the funds still face a projected $3 billion annual pension bill later this decade to stay on track for the state's 90% funding target.

The Strong Towns approach is simple in principle, even if politically difficult: maintain what you have, grow gradually, and invest in things that pay for themselves.

The Numbers at a Glance

Four numbers every Chicago resident should know, pulled directly from the city's 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), released in June 2026. They cover the city government only, which is about a fifth of your property tax bill.

−$65.3B
Net financial position
Chicago owes $65.3 billion more than it has. In 2003 the gap was $9 billion, about $16.5 billion in today's money.
28%
Pension funded ratio
Across its four pension funds, Chicago has 28 cents for every dollar promised to retirees. The $36.4 billion gap works out to about $31,400 per Chicago household.
$2.85B
Annual pension contribution
Up from $0.59 billion in 2016, a nearly fivefold increase in nine years. That's roughly one in every five dollars of city revenue, before a single service is delivered.
60%
Infrastructure value remaining
60% of the original value of Chicago's roads, pipes, and buildings is left on the books, down from 73% in 2003. An accounting estimate, but the steady decline tells a story.

What’s counted, and what isn’t

The city government only. Chicago Public Schools alone is a bigger share of your tax bill, and none of it is counted here.

The City of Chicago is roughly a fifth of your property tax bill. The Chicago Board of Education alone is more than half.

Counted: police, fire, streets, water, sewer, the airports, the Public Library and the Sales Tax Securitization Corporation.

Not counted: CPS, the CTA, the Park District, the Housing Authority, City Colleges and the Public Building Commission, which the ACFR treats as separate governments the city only appoints boards to. Nor Cook County, the Forest Preserve District or the MWRD.

Those governments carry their own debts and pension gaps, and they fall on the same households. Every figure here understates what a Chicago resident collectively owes.

What changed in the FY2025 numbers

The hole deepened by $1.6 billion, even as the pension funded ratio improved
  • The hole grew $1.6 billion deeper, to −$65.3 billion, despite a $219 million operating surplus. Liabilities outran it.
  • Pensions are 28% funded, up from 25% on investment returns. The dollar gap still grew, to $36.4 billion.
  • Interest fell to 3.4 cents per revenue dollar, a 22-year low. The 2017 sales tax securitization drove that, refinancing at AAA rates and stretching some maturities to 2048.
  • State and federal grants fell to 7% of revenue, also a 22-year low, as pandemic programs ended.
  • Infrastructure value left on the books slipped to 60% from 61%, after $1.6 billion of capital spending.

The charts below break it down, grouped by those three questions. Click each section to explore, or .

Sustainability

Can Chicago keep this up long-term?
01

The Bottom Line: How Deep in the Hole Is Chicago? [Net Financial Position]

Cash and financial assets (excluding roads, buildings, etc.) minus total liabilities

All four run through FY2025 (Chicago's ends in December, the others in June). New York also runs its schools and welfare, so its numbers cover much more than the other three.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
Chicago's net financial position by year, in billions of dollars, shown both as a total and per resident. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearNet financial positionPer resident
2003−$9.44 billion−$3,291 per resident
2004−$10.53 billion−$3,709 per resident
2005−$11.39 billion−$4,054 per resident
2006−$13.01 billion−$4,685 per resident
2007−$14.76 billion−$5,374 per resident
2008−$16.59 billion−$6,098 per resident
2009−$18.68 billion−$6,909 per resident
2010−$20.49 billion−$7,601 per resident
2011−$22.48 billion−$8,301 per resident
2012−$25.44 billion−$9,356 per resident
2013−$27.12 billion−$9,950 per resident
2014−$29.24 billion−$10,732 per resident
2015−$55.84 billion−$20,548 per resident
2016−$58.46 billion−$21,612 per resident
2017−$58.84 billion−$21,814 per resident
2018−$59.67 billion−$22,211 per resident
2019−$59.53 billion−$22,232 per resident
2020−$60.54 billion−$22,043 per resident
2021−$59.72 billion−$22,147 per resident
2022−$62.01 billion−$23,268 per resident
2023−$62.96 billion−$23,630 per resident
2024−$63.69 billion−$23,498 per resident
2025−$65.28 billion−$23,898 per resident
What this chart shows: Everything Chicago has in the bank, minus everything it owes: pensions, bonds, and other debts. The result is negative $65.3 billion, and it got worse by roughly $1.6 billion in 2025 alone. Twenty years ago it was negative $9 billion. That is not just inflation: the 2003 gap works out to about $16.5 billion in today's dollars, so the hole is roughly four times deeper in real terms. The cliff around 2015 is when a new accounting rule (GASB 68) required cities to report the full size of their pension promises for the first time. The debt was already there; the reporting finally showed it.
What this means for you Closing this gap means higher taxes, lower spending, or reduced benefits. Refinancing only moves it.
That $65.3 billion gap will eventually be addressed through some combination of higher taxes, lower spending, or reduced benefits. Refinancing stretches payments out, but doesn't reduce the total owed. To meaningfully close this gap, the city would need to take in more than it spends, consistently, for many years. In 2025 the city ran a $219 million operating surplus, and the gap still widened, because long-term liabilities grew faster. Switch the chart to per resident to compare cities of different size: Chicago's gap works out to about $23,900 per resident, against $34,200 in New York, $9,400 in Los Angeles and $5,800 in Houston.

How deep is the debt? Three more ways to measure it 3 charts
02

How Many Years Would It Take to Pay Off the Debt? [Net Debt-to-Total Revenues]

All four run through FY2025 (Chicago's ends in December, the others in June). New York also runs its schools and welfare, so its numbers cover much more than the other three.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
Chicago's net debt as a multiple of annual revenue, by year. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearNet debt to revenue
20031.64× annual revenue
20041.79× annual revenue
20051.83× annual revenue
20061.95× annual revenue
20072.11× annual revenue
20082.35× annual revenue
20092.79× annual revenue
20102.91× annual revenue
20112.98× annual revenue
20123.35× annual revenue
20133.47× annual revenue
20143.59× annual revenue
20156.24× annual revenue
20166.21× annual revenue
20176.09× annual revenue
20185.77× annual revenue
20195.29× annual revenue
20205.40× annual revenue
20214.63× annual revenue
20224.83× annual revenue
20234.19× annual revenue
20244.37× annual revenue
20254.36× annual revenue
Think of it this way: If Chicago devoted every dollar of revenue to paying off debt and spent nothing else, it would take 4.4 years. The jump in 2015 is the same pension reporting change described above, not new debt. At that peak it would have taken over 6 years. For a rough sense of scale, that's like a household earning $100,000 carrying $436,000 in debt. (Cities aren't households, but the ratio gives a feel for the weight of the obligation.)
Read the fine print The ratio improved because revenue grew, not because the city paid down what it owes.
The ratio improved from 6.2x in 2015 to 4.4x by 2025, but much of that drop came from revenue growing (including a temporary boost from pandemic-era federal aid), not from paying down what the city owes. The 2025 reading is essentially flat against 2024. In 2003, this ratio was under 2x.
03

Could the City Cover Its Bills Tomorrow? [Financial Assets-to-Total Liabilities]

All four run through FY2025 (Chicago's ends in December, the others in June). New York also runs its schools and welfare, so its numbers cover much more than the other three.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
Chicago's financial assets divided by total liabilities, by year. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearFinancial assets to liabilities
20030.448
20040.413
20050.464
20060.412
20070.377
20080.337
20090.322
20100.329
20110.321
20120.279
20130.260
20140.255
20150.153
20160.149
20170.178
20180.192
20190.194
20200.192
20210.201
20220.219
20230.234
20240.224
20250.225
Set aside physical infrastructure for a moment. Count only what Chicago has in cash, investments, and receivables, then compare that to everything it owes. The result: the city can cover about 22 cents of every dollar of its obligations with money it actually has on hand. The drop around 2015 is the same pension reporting change, not a sudden new expense.
So what? The other 78 cents depends on taxes that have not been collected yet.
The other 78 cents depends on future tax collections that haven't happened yet, primarily to cover pension obligations already locked in. The ratio ticked up between 2016 and 2023 and has drifted back down since, and the gap remains wide.

The chart above excludes physical assets like roads and buildings. What happens when we add them back in?

04

If Chicago Sold Everything, Could It Pay What It Owes? [Assets-to-Liabilities]

All four run through FY2025 (Chicago's ends in December, the others in June). New York also runs its schools and welfare, so its numbers cover much more than the other three.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
Chicago's total assets divided by total liabilities, by year. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearAssets to liabilities
20031.207
20041.175
20051.128
20061.106
20071.068
20081.033
20090.990
20100.949
20110.921
20120.879
20130.853
20140.833
20150.639
20160.601
20170.604
20180.602
20190.601
20200.621
20210.637
20220.652
20230.657
20240.644
20250.638
Now add physical infrastructure back in: every road, bridge, fire station, and water main the city owns. Divide the total by what Chicago owes. Below 1.0, the city is underwater. Chicago crossed that line in 2009 and hasn't resurfaced. The steeper drop around 2015 reflects that same pension reporting change.
What this tells you Even counting every road and building at book value, the total falls short.
Even with all physical assets included at book value, the total still falls short. Some assets may be worth more in practice, but this is the standard accounting measure. The trend has moved in one direction for two decades.
Flexibility

How much room does Chicago have to adapt?
05

How Fast Is Chicago's Infrastructure Wearing Out? [Net Book Value-to-Cost of Tangible Capital Assets]

All four run through FY2025 (Chicago's ends in December, the others in June). New York also runs its schools and welfare, so its numbers cover much more than the other three.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
Share of original value remaining in Chicago's tangible capital assets, by year. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearInfrastructure value remaining
200373.07%
200472.14%
200570.84%
200670.76%
200770.34%
200869.94%
200969.22%
201068.11%
201167.59%
201267.22%
201366.67%
201466.14%
201565.74%
201665.21%
201764.90%
201864.56%
201964.14%
202063.49%
202162.68%
202263.19%
202362.13%
202461.13%
202560.25%
How much useful life is left in what Chicago has built? This chart compares what the city's physical assets are worth after wear and tear (a method called depreciation) to what they originally cost. That number has fallen steadily from 73% to 60% over 22 years. Depreciation is an accounting estimate, not a pothole-by-pothole inspection, but a steady decline over two decades suggests the city isn't reinvesting fast enough.
The catch Deferred maintenance compounds: skip a year and the repair costs more later.
Deferred maintenance compounds. Skip a year of repaving and the road degrades faster, costing more to fix later. The decline in this ratio is slow enough to go unnoticed politically, until a water main bursts or a viaduct gets condemned. Chicago put roughly $1.6 billion into capital assets in 2025, and the ratio still slipped, because the depreciation clock runs on everything the city already owns. The size of the backlog shows up in the specifics: at the current replacement pace, the city's own plan does not finish pulling out its lead service lines until 2076, about three decades past the federal deadline. You can see where the money is budgeted to go in the 2025–2029 Capital Improvement Plan.
06

How Much Revenue Goes Straight to Interest Payments? [Interest-to-Total Revenues]

All four run through FY2025 (Chicago's ends in December, the others in June). New York also runs its schools and welfare, so its numbers cover much more than the other three.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
Interest cost as a percentage of Chicago's total revenue, by year. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearInterest to revenue
20035.23%
20045.99%
20055.38%
20065.57%
20075.51%
20085.41%
20095.78%
20105.75%
20116.29%
20126.06%
20136.11%
20147.12%
20159.63%
20165.27%
20177.47%
20185.91%
20195.73%
20205.53%
20215.55%
20224.17%
20233.78%
20243.65%
20253.40%
Of every dollar Chicago collects, how many cents go just to interest, before paying down any actual debt? At the 2015 peak, nearly 10 cents of every dollar. That spike came after a credit downgrade triggered penalty clauses in borrowing agreements, temporarily driving up costs. The city responded with a record property tax increase of $544.2 million, phased in over four years and dedicated entirely to the police and fire pension funds, plus new fees.
Look closer Cheaper debt payments, not less debt. Pension contributions are a separate cost on top.
In 2017, the city found a way to lower its borrowing costs. It created something called the Sales Tax Securitization Corporation (STSC), essentially a separate entity that borrows against Chicago's sales tax revenue at lower interest rates than the city could get on its own. That swapped expensive, unpredictable debt payments for cheaper, more stable ones. By 2025, interest costs are down to about 3.4 cents per revenue dollar. Three caveats before reading that as progress. The refunding retired no principal, so Chicago owes what it owed and simply pays less each year. Part of the saving comes from stretching maturities, in one 2018 deal out to 2048, which lowers the annual bill by spreading it over more years. And every dollar of state-collected sales tax now flows to the corporation first, with the city receiving what is left after debt service. This chart also covers only interest on bonds and loans. Annual pension contributions, which grew from $0.59 billion in 2016 to $2.85 billion in 2025 (the ACFR's Schedule of Contributions), are a separate cost on top of this.
Vulnerability

How dependent is Chicago on outside help?
07

How Much Money Comes from State and Federal Government? [Government Transfers-to-Total Revenue]

All four run through FY2025. New York sits high for a reason: it runs the schools and welfare, which state and federal money largely pays for. Chicago, LA and Houston run neither.

The interactive chart could not load. Every figure on this page is available in the Finance Decoder data sheet, and in the data table that follows each chart.
Hover chart for details · Toggle cities above to compare
State and federal grant revenue as a percentage of Chicago's total revenue, by year. Chicago only; figures for the comparison cities are in the linked data sheet.
YearGovernment transfers to revenue
200319.07%
200417.59%
200516.06%
200616.13%
200714.53%
200814.02%
200914.03%
201014.73%
201117.61%
201213.23%
201313.19%
201410.01%
20159.30%
20169.07%
20178.26%
20187.96%
20197.03%
202013.01%
20218.77%
20228.63%
20238.09%
20248.76%
20257.12%
What share of Chicago's revenue comes from grants out of Springfield or Washington instead of local taxes and fees? The 2020-2021 spike is federal COVID relief (ARPA). That money has been spent, and in 2025 grant revenue fell again to about 7%, the lowest share in the 22 years charted here.
Don't count on it Programs get cut and funding gets frozen. Only local revenue is under the city's control.
State and federal priorities change. Programs get cut, funding gets paused, administrations shift direction. It already shows up in the city's audited numbers: operating grant revenue fell from $1.07 billion in 2024 to $769 million in 2025, a drop of nearly $300 million in one year, and that decline is what the line above is measuring. In 2026, at least 20 of the 25 largest U.S. cities reported budget gaps as federal support shrinks. The exposure runs wider than the city's own books, too. The CTA is a legally separate agency whose finances are not in this chart, and the $2 billion already approved for its Red Line extension was frozen in October 2025, then released only in March 2026 after a federal judge ordered it in a case that is still live. A financially healthy city cannot count on outside help to close its gaps. The only revenue Chicago fully controls is local.

The money comes in.
The promises keep piling up.

Chicago doesn't have to miss a bond payment to "default" on its residents. Deferred maintenance, underfunded pensions, and rising debt are already shaping what the city can and can't do for you.

Send these charts to your alderperson (look yours up by address, or browse the full City Council list) and ask:

  • Pensions

    When will Chicago pay its full annual pension bill instead of 85% of it?

    Actuaries set an amount owed each year to keep the funds on track. Chicago paid 27% of it in 2016 and 85% in 2025. The rest keeps compounding into the $36.4 billion gap, and the yearly bill rises again this decade.

  • Capital projects

    Will every Lake Shore Drive option get a full lifecycle cost, plus what it does for safety, transit access and the tax base?

    The 1930s roadbed has deteriorated to the point that CDOT and IDOT say full reconstruction is needed, so doing nothing is not an option. After 1,800 comments the agencies dropped the eight-lane concept priced at $3.4 billion, and CMAP adopts updated plan language in October 2026. That $3.4 billion was a construction figure, not a lifecycle cost.

  • Borrowing

    Before the next bond issue, can you show which projects pay for themselves?

    The city already owes 4.4 times what it collects each year, and FY2026 authorized about $1.8 billion more.

  • A “balanced” budget

    How much of the next budget rests on one-time money?

    FY2026 was called balanced on a record $1.01 billion TIF surplus plus about $450 million of borrowing for operating costs. Neither repeats.

  • Outside money

    If Springfield and Washington don’t come through, what’s the local plan?

    City grant revenue is down to about 7% of what Chicago collects. And at the CTA, a separate agency, $2 billion in approved Red Line funding sat frozen for five months and was released only after a lawsuit.

Tell them you want a budget built on Strong Towns principles: maintain what we have, and stop passing the bill to the next generation.

Your City Needs You Join Strong Towns Chicago

Hungry for more?

Twelve sources, from the raw spreadsheet to the city's own budget and hearing calendar
Source data
➔ Finance Decoder DataRaw data behind every chart on this page ➔ Chicago's ACFRsThe city's official audited financials, published yearly
The city's own numbers
➔ Chicago's Budget DocumentsThe annual budget itself: recommendations, overview, and appropriations ➔ Budget HearingsWhen the public can testify. The highest-leverage hour you can spend on this ➔ Council Office of Financial AnalysisCity Council's own independent budget analysts, since 2015 ➔ 2025–2029 Capital Improvement PlanWhere the city plans to spend on infrastructure
Independent analysis
➔ Civic Federation Pension DashboardInteractive funded ratios for all four city pension funds ➔ Civic Federation on the FY2026 BudgetHow the current budget was balanced, and what it defers
Strong Towns
➔ The Finance DecoderHow the tool works, what it measures, and how Chicago compares to other cities ➔ Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up RevolutionThe book that started the movement, by Charles Marohn
Follow the conversation
➔ A City That WorksPolicy analysis and ideas on how to make Chicago work better ➔ The Last WardChicago government accountability and City Hall decision-making

About this data

Source: Chicago's Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFR), 2003-2025. Figures come from the government-wide statements for the primary government (governmental plus business-type activities). Figures are charted in nominal dollars. Six of the seven indicators are ratios, so inflation cancels out of them; only net financial position is an absolute dollar figure, and the real-terms comparison quoted for it uses annual average CPI-U (184.0 in 2003 against 321.9 for 2025, a partial-year average because of the 2025 lapse in appropriations).

Per resident: The net financial position chart can be switched to a per-resident view, which divides each year's figure by that city's population for that year. This is the only chart where city size distorts the comparison; the other six are ratios and are already size-neutral. Two caveats. First, the 2020 figures are decennial census counts while the surrounding years are inter-censal estimates, which puts a small step in the 2020 point, most visible for New York. Second, the 2024 population figures are approximate. Neither moves any line by more than a few percent, and neither changes a trend. The 2025 populations are the Census Bureau's estimates for July 1, 2025 (Chicago 2,731,585; New York City 8,584,629; Los Angeles 3,869,089; Houston 2,397,315).

What “Chicago” means here: Every figure on this page covers the City of Chicago only. Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Transit Authority, the Park District, the Housing Authority and City Colleges are legally separate governments. The ACFR calls them “related organizations” and excludes them, because the city appoints board members but has no financial accountability for them. Their debts and pension gaps are real and fall on the same taxpayers, but none of them appear in any number here, so the totals on this page understate what a Chicago resident is collectively on the hook for. The city’s own reporting entity does include the Chicago Public Library and the Sales Tax Securitization Corporation.

Are these cities comparable? Partly, and it depends on the chart. Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston are close structural peers: none runs a school district or a county welfare system, and each owns large utilities or airports. New York is the outlier — its city government runs the public schools and the social-services system, which with health and CUNY are about 56% of its budget, and it owns almost no enterprises. Recomputing Chicago on New York’s reporting basis moves net-debt-to-revenue by only about 2%, but moves assets-to-liabilities and interest-to-revenue by roughly a third. On government transfers that basis difference explains just 1.6 points of the 18.5-point gap between the two cities; the rest is simply that New York runs schools and Chicago does not. Treat net-debt-to-revenue as the most robust comparison and government transfers as the least.

Comparison cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston are drawn from their respective ACFRs and all run through fiscal year 2025. Fiscal years are not aligned: Chicago closes December 31 and the other three close June 30, so a year label does not cover the same twelve months in every city, and the comparison cities' FY2025 ends six months before Chicago's. Los Angeles is charted from 2012, the earliest year in our source data for that city. One further wrinkle: the Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston series measure the total primary government, while the New York City series measures governmental activities only, which is how that city presents its headline figures. Each city's series is internally consistent over time, which is what the trend lines depend on, but levels are not strictly like-for-like across cities.

Pensions: Covers the city's four funds (Municipal, Police, Fire, Laborers). The funded ratio and the $36.4 billion gap are the primary government's total pension liability and net pension liability as reported in the FY2025 ACFR, measured December 31, 2025. Other published figures may differ slightly depending on measurement date and whether other post-employment benefits are included. The sharp shifts around 2015 are due to GASB 68, a reporting change. The obligations already existed; only the reporting was new. Figures represent long-term actuarial obligations, not cash due today.

Infrastructure: Depreciation-based metrics are accounting estimates, not physical condition assessments. The denominator is the original cost of tangible capital assets and excludes right-of-use lease and subscription assets.

Peer median: Where offered, this is the middle value among New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston for each year, using whichever of the three reported that year. It is a description of what three other large cities happen to look like, not a target or a standard. It is not offered on the net financial position chart, where comparing raw dollar totals across cities of very different size would mislead.

Accessibility: Each chart is paired with an equivalent data table for screen readers. If the charting library fails to load, the page says so and points to the source data rather than showing empty boxes.

This page is intended to inform public discussion, not to provide financial advice. Spot an error? Let us know.

Last updated August 2026 · Reflects the FY2025 ACFR