Mayor Brandon Johnson is pitching a $24 million increase to the city’s summer youth jobs program that would fund 7,000 more positions in 2027.
The increase would bring the total number of jobs to roughly 40,000 by next year, bringing to full fruition one of Johnson’s cornerstone campaign promises to double the city’s youth employment program.
Johnson told WBEZ it is “one of the most consequential” proposals in his 2027 spending plan.
“I made a commitment to increase the number of opportunities for young people to have paid jobs throughout the summer, and this is going to put us that much closer to meeting the overwhelming demand that young people have in terms of wanting jobs,” Johnson said.
The city’s summer jobs program, now known as Chicago Youth Works, started under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The city hires young people directly at its sister agencies, like the Chicago Park District, doles out grants to community organizations, and partners with corporations, like the Chicago Bulls, to hire kids.
Kids work as restaurant servers, retail workers, yoga studio staffers, grocery store stockers, in government offices and more. The employment program runs for a limited time frame over the summer: just six weeks.
The number of applicants has consistently outpaced the number of jobs available for young people between the ages of 14 and 24, with nearly 60,000 kids applying for jobs each year. And a recent survey of Chicago teens by the group My Block. My Hood. My City. showed kids are craving jobs and businesses in their South and West Side neighborhoods.
The summer before Johnson took office, the city funded 20,544 positions, still suffering from a big pandemic-era dip. The year before the pandemic, the city funded 31,552 youth positions.
Johnson has steadily boosted the number of jobs annually during his freshman tenure, marking one of his most tangible campaign promises kept. Johnson increased funding for youth employment by $6.2 million this year, and by $25.6 million in 2025, according to the city’s budget office.
“I’ve been very much motivated to ensure that young people in this city have those opportunities and that we fund them because it’s not just creating life skills — it’s saving lives,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s office said that the city has seen declines in violent crime over the summer in the five community areas where the greatest number of participants were hired this year — Austin, Auburn Gresham, Roseland, South Shore and North Lawndale. Auburn Gresham, though, has seen a 14% increase in homicides this year compared to last.
Johnson’s plans to increase youth hiring could get stuck in the crosshairs of what’s sure to be a contentious budget battle with the City Council caucus that took control of the 2026 budget process.
The city is facing, and must close, an $882.4 million budget gap for 2027, with limited authority to raise new types of revenue.
Johnson’s pitch to close that gap, in part, is through a new corporate head tax that would apply a $25 per-employee tax on companies with 125 or more workers. It would rake in $101 million a year, the budget office estimates.
But Johnson’s Council opposition of mostly moderate and conservative alders, who killed a similar head tax proposal of his last year, have all but called that idea dead on arrival, deeming it a “job killer.”
When asked whether he would be willing to negotiate on the size of the increase he’s pitching to the summer jobs program as part of the budget process, Johnson avoided the question and pointed back to the value he sees in the program.
“It is proven that violence amongst young people is reduced as a result of these investments,” he reiterated.