As a survey researcher, I regularly work with economic indicators that tell us whether prices, wages, employment, or housing markets are moving up or down. Those measures are essential, but they cannot tell us by themselves how people experience those conditions in their daily lives.

That is what ChicagoSpeaks^® adds. By asking a representative sample of residents about their perceptions and experiences, ChicagoSpeaks shows how the economy registers in Chicagoans’ lives: whether they say they are thriving, how affordable they consider the area where they live, and whether their income covers their bills in a typical month.

The June 2026 findings reveal a connected—but not always uniform—story. Few Chicagoans say they are thriving financially. Most consider the cost of living for an average family in their area unaffordable. Nearly one-third say they cannot pay every bill in full in a typical month. When we place those ChicagoSpeaks findings alongside housing data showing how much income many Chicago households devote to housing, a fuller picture of financial strain emerges.

In June 2026, ChicagoSpeaks asked residents how well they were managing financially. Six percent said they were thriving financially—the strongest response category in the survey. Another 35 percent said they were living comfortably, while 43 percent said they were just getting by, and 16 percent said they were finding it difficult to get by.

Taken together, nearly 6 in 10 Chicagoans—59 percent—were on the financially strained side of the scale rather than the comfortable or thriving side. What stands out to me is that the largest group is not reporting outright crisis. They are “just getting by.” The phrase suggests stability with little margin: residents may be managing current expenses without feeling able to get ahead, save, or absorb a financial emergency.

That margin is distributed unequally. Seventy-seven percent of Black adults and 70 percent of Hispanic adults said they were just getting by or finding it difficult, compared with 41 percent of White adults. Ten percent of White adults reported thriving, compared with 2 percent each of Black and Hispanic adults.

Differences by sex were present but more nuanced. Women were less likely than men to report thriving—4 percent versus 7 percent—and more likely to say they were just getting by—47 percent versus 39 percent. Women and men were equally likely to say they were finding it difficult to get by, at 16 percent. ChicagoSpeaks lets us look beyond a citywide average and see where different groups’ experiences are similar—and where they are not. 

ChicagoSpeaks also asked whether the cost of living for the average family in the area where respondents live was affordable. Two-thirds—67 percent—said it was not very affordable or not affordable at all. In an April 2026 Marist national poll using comparable wording, 56 percent of U.S. adults said the same. Concerns about affordability are widespread nationally, but the share is higher in Chicago.

These perceptions do not map perfectly onto personal financial hardship, and that divergence is useful. Seventy-two percent of White adults described the cost of living in their area as unaffordable, compared with 62 percent of Black adults, even though Black adults reported substantially greater difficulty getting by and paying bills. North Central residents were also especially likely to describe local costs as unaffordable, while residents in the South reported more direct financial strain.

The questions capture different levels of financial life. One asks respondents to assess costs for an average family where they live; the others ask about their own finances. Someone may live comfortably while believing their area is unaffordable for an average family. Another person may struggle financially in a part of the city that is less expensive by citywide standards. ChicagoSpeaks makes it possible to see both the local cost environment and residents’ lived experience rather than assuming they are interchangeable.

The pattern by sex is more consistent. Women were more likely than men to describe the cost of living in their area as unaffordable—72 percent versus 61 percent—and were also more likely to say they were just getting by. This is another advantage of asking multiple questions: We can identify where experiences reinforce one another and where they diverge. 

Housing is the clearest example of how affordability can constrain financial thriving because it is a large, recurring expense that most households cannot quickly reduce. Households are generally considered housing cost-burdened when they spend more than 30 percent of income on housing and severely burdened when they spend more than half. Simply put, the more income a household spends on housing, the less remains for food, transportation, health care, debt, savings, and other needs.

Using 2019-2023 American Community Survey estimates, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and DePaul University’s Institute for Housing Studies report that 47.8 percent of Chicago renters are cost-burdened, including 25.0 percent who are severely burdened. Owners are less likely to be burdened, but they are not immune: 28.9 percent are cost-burdened and 13.6 percent are severely burdened. Nationally, about half of renters and roughly one-quarter of owners face housing cost burdens. Chicago’s renter experience resembles a broader national problem, while its owner burden appears higher.

The income gradient is even more revealing. Among Chicago renters earning less than $20,000, 89 percent are cost-burdened and 76.2 percent spend more than half their income on housing. Among renters earning at least $100,000, only 4.2 percent are burdened. For owners, 95.4 percent of households earning below $20,000 are burdened, compared with 7.7 percent of those earning at least $100,000.

These differences show why housing affordability is about more than the price of housing itself. What matters is how much of a household’s income housing consumes—and how much is left for everything else.

Recent trends add urgency. Chicago’s overall renter-burden rate was about the same in 2022 as it had been in 2019, but severe renter burden rose from 19.9 percent to 27.4 percent. Nationally, the number of cost-burdened households reached a record 43.5 million in 2024. Not every measure moved in the same direction every year, but the evidence shows that many households continue to devote a substantial share of income to housing and that the deepest burdens have become more common.

These housing estimates come from sources other than ChicagoSpeaks, so they cannot tell us that housing costs caused any individual survey response. They do provide important context.

This is where the different kinds of evidence begin to connect. ChicagoSpeaks tells us that most residents perceive the cost of living as unaffordable. Housing data show how one major expense can consume a substantial share of household income. And ChicagoSpeaks’ bill-paying question shows what limited financial margin can look like in residents’ everyday lives. 

Thirty-one percent of Chicagoans said they could not pay some bills or could make only partial payments in a typical month; 68 percent said they could typically pay all their bills in full. Most residents are keeping up, but nearly one in three are not.

Here, the subgroup pattern closely resembles the results on thriving versus getting by. More than half of Black adults—53 percent—reported difficulty paying every bill in full, compared with 38 percent of Hispanic adults, 15 percent of White adults, and 14 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander adults. Women were also more likely than men to report bill-paying difficulty, 40 percent versus 22 percent.

Geography reinforces the pattern. Bill-paying difficulty was more common in the South, Southwest, and West than in North Central and Northwest Chicago. Those are also the parts of the city where more residents said they were just getting by or finding it difficult. The consistency across these personal financial measures suggests that the disparities are not artifacts of a single question.

These findings return us to the central value of ChicagoSpeaks. Economic and administrative data can describe prices, wages, housing costs, and market trends. ChicagoSpeaks shows how those conditions register in residents’ lives. It distinguishes a broad judgment about affordability for an average family from a personal assessment of whether someone is thriving or getting by, then connects both to a concrete monthly experience: paying bills.

A timely, representative city panel gives researchers, community organizations, journalists, and decision-makers a way to test assumptions about what Chicagoans experience and identify which experiences are widespread or concentrated among particular groups. Paired carefully with sources such as the American Community Survey, ChicagoSpeaks connects the economic conditions surrounding households with the language residents use to describe their own financial lives.

The June 2026 results do not point to one simple explanation for financial strain, and they should not be read as a causal model. They do show why affordability cannot be understood only through prices or averages. A fuller picture includes the financial margin households have after essential costs are paid—and whether that margin is enough to build security rather than simply make it through another month.