Mayor Brandon Johnson’s job approval rating has inched up to 31%, but Chicagoans are less enthusiastic about his $600 million tax plan to “challenge the ultra-rich and corporations to pay their fair share,” a new poll shows.
The slight improvement in Johnson’s job approval rating follows months of mayoral attacks on budget cuts imposed or threatened by President Donald Trump, and after Johnson’s opposition to weeks of immigration raids that have beseiged Chicago neighborhoods.
The poll of 812 registered Chicago voters was conducted Oct. 17-23 by the Democratic polling firm Change Research for One Future Illinois. That’s the political action committee created by business and civic leaders last year to promote candidates in Chicago’s first school board elections and organize around other key issues confronting the city and state. It has an error margin of plus or minus 3.7%.
According to the results, 31% of those surveyed approve of the job Johnson is doing, while 61% disapprove.
That a slight improvement from the 26% approval rating that Johnson received in a poll conducted June 23 through July 9 commissioned by the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, and conducted by the nonpartisan organization NORC at the University of Chicago’s ChicagoSpeaks Panel.
Even at 31%, Johnson remains “deeply under water” with a “credibility problem,” according to Change Research.
The mayor’s 27% favorability is only four percentage points higher than Trump’s 23% and only one percentage point higher than the rating for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (26%), the poll shows.
The poll was conducted on the day after Johnson unveiled a $16.6 billion budget that includes nearly $600 million in progressive tax and fee increases and a record $1 billion tax increment-financing surplus to rescue the city and the Chicago Public Schools.
The laundry list of business taxes he championed includes: a $21 a month per-employee head tax; a 27% increase in the tax on cloud computing; an increased ride-sharing fee in an expanded downtown area; a city tax on hemp products and online sports bets; an increased boat mooring fee; and a tax on social media companies the Civic Federation called “legally highly questionable.”
Business leaders have condemned Johnson’s proposed corporate head tax that would yield $100 million a year as a “job-killer,” and branded a tax on cloud computing, which would produce $333 million a year, as it’s “job-crushing sibling.” Gov. JB Pritzker has also declared his opposition to the head tax.
The new poll gives One Future Illinois new ammunition to use in lobbying incumbent alderpersons against the business taxes.
Only 40% of those surveyed said they would support a head tax of $21 a month per employee on Chicago businesses with more than 100 employees. That’s even after being told of Johnson’s claim that “only about 3%” of Chicago businesses would be impacted by the tax and that “the money would go toward youth programs, including health, job training and employment opportunities.”
Johnson has argued that the tax will ensure that businesses “pay their fair share” for an array of crime-fighting social programs. Just 20% of those surveyed said they “trust Mayor Johnson to oversee a $100 million community safety fund that taxes jobs.”
Not surprisingly, 71% of those surveyed said they believe Johnson should be doing more to find ways to cut city expenses rather than raise taxes and fees.
Only 25% of those questioned support Johnson’s plan to switch, from a flat fee to a percentage, the congestion tax imposed on ride-sharing services, and to enlarge the downtown congestion zone by 20%. The tax on social media companies like Meta TikTok, Instagram, X and Reddit was supported by 37% of those surveyed.
So-called “sin taxes” on hemp products (60% support) and online sports bets (70% approval) were the only taxes on the mayor’s list that attracted majority support.
Only 26% of those surveyed support Johnson’s decision to shrink by $117.8 million the advanced pension payment after being reminded of the recent police and fire pension sweetener that “will add $11 billion” to the city’s long-term pension liability.
Forty-five percent of those surveyed were men; 55% were women. Respondents were 44% white; 28% Black; 19% Latino and 6% Asian/Pacific Islander. Fifty-six percent of those polled had annual household incomes below $100,000, with 7% earning over $250,000.