Financial Health Pulse® 2025 Chicago Trends Report

Financial health reflects a household’s ability to meet daily needs, manage shocks, and build long-term security. Financially Healthy households have greater freedom to choose how they spend their money and time, and more options when it comes to decisions such as housing, healthcare, childcare, education, transportation and food—choices that significantly alter the quality of a person’s life.

Understanding how our region’s financial health changes over time can help stakeholders identify, shape and refine programs and strategies that can improve people’s financial well-being.

Key Findings from the 2025 Report

Financial health has improved since 2022 for the most vulnerable. The share of Financially Vulnerable households in Cook County decreased from 19% in 2022 to 18% in 2025, including notable improvements among Black (39% to 33%) and Latino* residents (30% to 26%).

• The Chicago area’s wealth gaps persist. Black and Latino residents are twice as likely to report negative net worth as white households (23%, 21%, 10%).
• Geographic disparities are stark. About one-third of residents on Chicago’s South and West sides are Financially Vulnerable, compared to 11% on the North Side. In suburban Cook County, vulnerability rates range from 8% in the north suburbs to 25% in the south suburbs, reflecting unequal income, assets, and debt burdens region wide.

The study also found that:

• Cook County households are more likely than U.S. households to own key assets. Sixty-five percent have an employer-sponsored retirement account, compared to 54% nationally, and higher shares also hold IRAs (49% vs. 34%) and 529 education savings plans (12% vs. 7%).
• There is a growing gap between credit strength and debt burden. Despite rising credit scores from 2022 to 2025, more Chicago borrowers fell behind on debt, with revolving credit delinquency rising from 26% to 29% and mortgage delinquency increasing from 5% to 7%—signaling growing difficulty managing debt.
• Homeownership aspirations remain high, but near-term expectations are low. Sixty-seven percent of renters in Cook County want to own, yet only 51% expect to buy within five years, and 77% say buying a home today would be difficult.
• Homeownership is increasing for Black and Asian households. Homeownership rates grew from 39 to 43% for Black respondents and from 52 to 58% for Asian households.** While these rates are still well below the share of white respondents who are homeowners (70%), the increase is notable during a period of limited housing supply and high mortgage interest rates.
• Higher incomes are not a guarantee of financial health. In 2025, only 27% of households in Cook County earning between $60K and $100K were Financially Healthy, a dip of nine percentage points from 2022. Financial health fell by six points for those earning more than $100K (from 62 to 56%) between 2022 and 2025.
• More residents feel positive about key aspects of the communities where they live. Between 2022 and 2025, a greater share of households in Cook County rated the cleanliness, open spaces, transit, safety, arts and entertainment, and places to shop and eat in their neighborhoods favorably. While satisfaction with the affordability of housing improved modestly, it remained very low (29%).

All findings listed above are statistically significant unless noted otherwise.

*In the report and research brief, respondents who identified themselves as of Spanish, Hispanic or Latino descent were categorized as “Latino.”   

**The share of Latino homeowners also increased but did not meet statistical significance.