Chicago’s Head Case Wants a Head Tax

Mayor Johnson wants to levy a per employee tax on city businesses.

By

The Editorial Board

Oct. 31, 2025 5:41 pm ET

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson

There are bad ideas, really bad ideas, and then there is whatever Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is proposing next. His latest desire is a head tax on job creation in the city.

America’s worst mayor is proposing a $21 a month tax on each employee of businesses that have more than a hundred employees. Chicago is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall for 2026, and the mayor’s office projects the tax would bring in about $100 million in new revenue. The mayor seems not to have heard of the truism that if you tax something you get less of it.

Mr. Johnson’s Budget Director Annette Guzman told the Chicago Tribune that the tax would apply only to employees who spend three days a week in the office. But many offices are still recovering from the work-at-home Covid years. The mayor apparently wants to give companies incentive to keep employees working at home.

That’s bad news for Chicago restaurants trying to win back regular lunch crowds. It also penalizes companies whose business is more blue-collar or in services. Workers who need to be in person each day (say, in healthcare or manufacturing) don’t have the luxury of evading the head tax by working from home.

Chicago previously had a head tax, but former Mayor Rahm Emanuel persuaded the City Council to eliminate it in 2014 as a “job killer.” Mr. Johnson is reviving it on the advice of allies who published a report as he assumed office, “First We Get the Money.” They seem to believe that “large corporations” pay a head tax, as opposed to their workers through fewer jobs or lower pay.

The idea is so destructive that even Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker opposes it. He told the Economic Club of Chicago that the tax “penalizes the very thing that we want, which is we want more employment in the City of Chicago.” He added that the tax “makes it very hard to attract companies from outside of Chicago and harder for companies that are in Chicago to stay.”

Mr. Pritzker knows what he’s talking about, having presided over the departure of such firms as Citadel, Boeing and Caterpillar after the companies grew frustrated with the state and city business environments.

Mayor Johnson says the business community is being “awfully unreasonable” in its opposition to the tax and that it should “do some real soul-searching.” Mr. Johnson says the tax is meant to finance public safety so those opposing it must not want to “help domestic violence survivors, youth employment and the mental health of our police officers.” This may be the first time the mayor has expressed sympathy for the police.

Most cities pay for public safety in the general budget, and Chicago wouldn’t need what it calls a “safety surcharge” if it didn’t spend so much on pensions and debt service. The head tax won’t bring in $100 million in revenue, but it will send many heads relocating to places where they don’t get taxed for coming to the office.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5792634&forum_id=2...id#49394975)

We’ll tax job creation, but only if those employees come into the city!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5792634&forum_id=2...id#49395016)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5792634&forum_id=2...id#49395053)

in contrast this nigga in chicago is literally a retarded gorilla, its like giving the budget to a gorilla in uganda and then letting him just shit on it then pretending this is really great and amazing

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5792634&forum_id=2...id#49395138)

120 plan, but solid 165 headline. Chicago is such a basket case. It's amazing what libs can do to what should be a great city.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5792634&forum_id=2...id#49395062)