There are few civic traditions more deeply ingrained in Illinois than complaining about taxes. We complain about property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, Springfield spending, Chicago spending and whatever fresh government fee wandered into the mailbox this week. If somebody proposed a tax on complaining about taxes, Illinois would probably balance the budget by the weekend.
To be clear, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for frustration. Illinois has spent decades dealing with pension liabilities, high property taxes, budget problems and enough corruption scandals to make skepticism toward government spending feel less like cynicism and more like pattern recognition. But one claim often gets bundled into all of that without much examination: Illinois government simply spends way more money than everybody else.
That one deserves a closer look.
The state-spending comparison that sent me down this rabbit hole ranked Illinois 22nd nationally in spending per capita. Not first. Not third. Not even top 10. Illinois sits much closer to the middle of the American pack than you might expect from listening to the way state government is usually discussed around here.
Another dataset tells roughly the same story, although it places Illinois somewhat higher. KFF’s State Health Facts database, using expenditure data collected by the National Association of State Budget Officers, shows Illinois spending $11,003 per resident in State Fiscal Year 2024. By that measure, Illinois ranked 16th among the 50 states.
So depending on the dataset, definitions and fiscal year being used, Illinois lands somewhere from the middle of the pack to the upper-middle. That is not the same thing as being a low-spending state, but it is also a long way from the popular image of Illinois operating some uniquely enormous government money furnace.
Illinois Is Not A Low-Spending State
Before somebody screenshots one sentence from this and starts building a Facebook bonfire around it, let me be clear about what I am not arguing. Illinois is not a low-spending state.
The KFF/NASBO data put nationwide state spending at $8,958 per capita in FY2024, while Illinois was at $11,003. Illinois was clearly above that national figure. But “above average” and “wildly out of line with the rest of the country” are two very different claims.
Consider some of the states that spent more per person. Alaska was at $19,464. Delaware spent $15,324. West Virginia was at $14,607. Hawaii came in at $14,047. Oregon was at $13,714. New Mexico was at $13,020. Vermont was at $12,912. Arizona was at $12,763. New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and California were also above Illinois.
Even neighboring Wisconsin came in slightly higher at $11,122 per person.
That does not make Illinois cheap. It does, however, make Illinois look a lot more ordinary. Rather than standing alone as some fiscal freak show, the state sits among a large group spending somewhere around $10,000 to $12,000 per resident.
That does not mean every dollar is spent wisely. It simply means the amount itself is not uniquely Illinois.
Where Does The Money Actually Go?
The next useful question is what we actually mean when we talk about government spending. It is easy to imagine an ever-expanding army of bureaucrats sitting in Springfield ordering ergonomic desk chairs and scheduling meetings about future meetings. The actual budget is much less dramatic.
Illinois’ fiscal year 2025 General Funds spending totaled about $53.85 billion. Of that, about $22.05 billion, or 41 percent, went to education. Another $19.93 billion, or 37 percent, went to health and social services. Together, those two categories accounted for roughly 78 percent of General Funds expenditures.
Education includes elementary and secondary schools, higher education and retirement contributions. Health and social services include medical assistance, programs for children and families, mental health and developmental disability services and related programs. Another $3.31 billion went toward public protection and justice, including prisons, courts and law enforcement, while transfers from the General Funds also helped cover debt service.
There are perfectly reasonable arguments to be made about whether those programs should cost what they cost. We can debate how they are administered, how pensions are funded, how Medicaid operates and whether education spending produces enough value. We could probably keep going until somebody turns off the lights at the VFW hall.
But those are different arguments from saying Illinois simply spends an absurd amount of money compared with every other state.
Comparisons Are Messier Than They Look
There is also a giant asterisk attached to every state-spending ranking because states organize government differently. A service funded primarily through state government in Illinois might be handled more heavily by counties, municipalities or school districts somewhere else. Some states rely more on dedicated funds. Some receive more federal money. Some structure capital projects differently.
The KFF figures include general funds, federal funds, other state funds and bonds, and KFF itself warns that states differ in how particular government functions are financed. That makes direct comparisons useful, but not perfect.
If Illinois pays for something through the state budget that another state pushes down to local government, the Illinois state budget may look larger even if taxpayers in both places ultimately fund similar services. The accounting trail changes even when the underlying cost does not disappear.
Everyone’s darling spending state, Florida, is one such example. They push much of their service spending onto the local and county level, while also enjoying the benefits of high tourism and less road maintenance in the south.
That is why no single per-capita spending ranking can settle the larger debate over whether Illinois government is too large, too expensive or inefficient. What it can do is challenge some of the assumptions people bring into that debate.
Taxes And Spending Are Not The Same Question
This is probably the most important distinction in the entire discussion. You can believe Illinoisans pay too much in taxes without believing Illinois state government spends dramatically more than governments elsewhere.
Those ideas overlap, but they are not identical. Tax burdens are shaped not only by spending, but also by how taxes are structured, how responsibilities are divided between state and local government, pension obligations, debt, the tax base and the mix of property, income and sales taxes used to raise revenue.
So pointing out that Illinois’ spending is not a national outlier does not make anyone’s property-tax bill less irritating. It does, however, change the diagnosis.
If Illinois were spending twice as much per resident as comparable states, the solution would seem pretty straightforward: Illinois has a gigantic spending problem. But that is not what these numbers show. Instead, Illinois appears to be a relatively high-spending state operating within a broad national range that includes plenty of other states.
That is a much less satisfying answer because it deprives everyone of their favorite villain.
Maybe “Illinois Spends Too Much” Is Too Simple
There are good arguments to have about Illinois government. We should ask which programs work, which do not, where money is wasted, whether taxpayers receive enough value and whether services could be delivered more efficiently. We should also ask how much of today’s budget is constrained by decisions made decades ago and how much flexibility policymakers actually have.
Those questions are harder than simply shouting “CUT SPENDING,” because eventually someone has to decide what gets cut and deal with whatever happens next. But that is where the interesting discussion begins. Taxes are unpopular. So are cuts.
The data do not really support the cartoon version of Illinois as some bizarre government-spending outlier. One ranking puts us 22nd. Another major dataset puts us 16th. Neither sounds much like fiscal Mars.
Illinois spends plenty of money, and taxpayers have every right to care whether that money is spent well. But if the argument is simply that Illinois government spending is completely out of line with the rest of America, the numbers make that case much harder to defend.
Sometimes the boring answer wins. Illinois might not be uniquely insane. We may just be American.
