2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Physicians, All Other

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN metropolitan area. Estimated employment 16,950.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 29-1229
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$94,820 · 50th
$73,43010th
$81,36025th
$94,82050th
$321,35075th
$430,24090th

That is the medianhalf of people in this occupation in Chicago earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$94,820 in Chicago buys what $91,500 buys across the country as a whole.

Chicago's regional price parity is 103.6 — above the national average, so the nominal figure overstates what it buys. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.

Table 2 — Nearby metros

The same job, elsewhere in Illinois

Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.

Metro areaMedianAdjustedRPPvs. Chicago
Decatur$429,340$485,60088.4+430.5%
Champaign$423,260$456,60092.7+398.8%
Kankakee$400,280$415,30096.4+353.7%
Bloomington$356,830$381,50093.5+316.8%
Rockford$323,660$351,20092.2+283.7%
Peoria$224,690$246,30091.2+169.1%
Chicago This page$94,820$91,500103.6

Price parity and difference against Chicago are in the full table on wider screens.

Table 3 — Employers

Who pays what

Median offered salary from visa filings, which disclose employer, title and exact figure. Government wage surveys never publish at this level.

EmployerMedian offerRangeFilingsvs. metro
The Mount Sinai Community Foundation$285,000$260k – $440k9+200.6%
Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation$190,822$104k – $323k6+101.2%
Mcgaw Medical Center$90,082$74k – $94k11−5.0%
University OF Illinois Chicago$83,011$72k – $88k7−12.5%
Cook County Health$64,059$64k – $82k32−32.4%

Offer ranges and filing counts are in the full table on wider screens.

Fig. 2 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.

0k100k200k300k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay fell 54.4% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 61.6% — prices rose faster than pay since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.

Sources

How this page was made

Wage data
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
Price parity
Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
Employer pay
Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application disclosures, FY 2025. The table draws on 65 certified filings across 5 employers.
Inflation
Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
Employment
16,950 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 29-1229, Physicians, All Other. Mapped to our taxonomy as physicians-all-other.

Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. Visa filings record offered base salary at time of application, exclude equity and bonus, and skew toward larger employers — treat the employer table as a floor, not an average. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.