DNC heads to Chicago as city nears a decade of population decline
Illinois Policy Institute found that Chicago's population has declined 9 straight years, while Illinois as a whole has seen a decade of declines
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The Democratic National Convention will be held this week in Chicago from Monday through Thursday, and while delegates flock to the site to rally for the Harris-Walz ticket, the Windy City is approaching a decade of declining population amid rising taxes and crime.
A report by the Illinois Policy Institute found that Chicago has seen its population decline each of the last nine years with the city losing a net 128,034 residents, according to Census Bureau estimates.
That left the Windy City with a population of 2,664,452 in 2023, which is Chicago's smallest population since before the 1920 Census, when it had 2,701,705 residents. If current trends continue, the city is on track to lose its title of America's third-largest city to Houston.
Chicago and Illinois have long been strongholds of Democrat governance with relatively high tax rates that landed the state in 44th place for the Tax Foundation's 2022 rankings of state and local tax burdens and 37th place in the think tank's 2024 business tax climate rankings.
Chicago's population has fallen for nine straight years as the Windy City prepares to host the Democratic National Convention. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Illinois Policy Institute's report cited polling conducted by NPR Illinois and the University of Illinois, which found that 61% of Illinoisans considered leaving the state in 2019, with the leading reason for their potential exit being the state's high taxes.
Additionally, crime is on the rise up 7.6% annually through June 2024 with robberies up even more at 21%, according to IPI.
At the state level, the report noted that Illinois is also experiencing an outflow of residents. It ranked as the state with the third-largest population decline in 2022 after seeing 87,311 residents head for other states based on 2022 tax return data from the IRS.
The only states with larger outmigration that year were California with 307,117 and New York with 222,702.
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Chicago is hosting the Democratic National Convention at United Center this week. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Illinois has seen its population decline for 10 consecutive years through 2023, with a total decline of 548,916 in that period, according to Census estimates analyzed by IPI.
As the exodus of Chicagoans and Illinoisans continues, many are heading to low-tax states.
Florida gained the most Illinois residents in 2022, per IRS data, with 19,099 flocking to the Sunshine State, followed by Texas, which gained 12,259 residents from Illinois. Neighboring Indiana ranked third with a gain of 9,196 former Illinois residents.
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Chicago and Illinois at large have seen years-long streaks of population declines, with residents citing high taxes as a reason for considering leaving. (iStock / iStock)
Notably, no U.S. state saw more than 300 residents move to Illinois in that period, per the IRS data cited in IPI's report.
New Jersey ranked the highest with 272 residents moving to the Prairie State that year, followed by Louisiana with 148.