Licensed Practical Nurse Salary in Chicago, IL 2026,
$78,070 Median | BLS + Market Data

Chicago LPNs earn a BLS median of $78,070/yr, or $37.54 an hour, across the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro, with a published band from $62,200 to $96,530. That is 21.2% above the US median for the occupation, one of the widest premiums on this site. BLS counts 11,420 licensed practical nurses in the metro.

Yes — the metro runs 4.1% above the Illinois statewide figure, and the metro's premium over the national figure is far larger still. Among peer metros Chicago sits below San Diego at $79,720, Los Angeles at $79,310 and Phoenix at $78,080 by a small margin, and above Denver at $75,810 and Philadelphia at $70,710.

Because of an acute staffing shortage in a specific sector. Long-term care and skilled nursing across this region depend on licensed practical nurses and have struggled to recruit them for years, while hospitals — which once employed many LPNs — have largely shifted to registered-nurse staffing models. That leaves a large body of essential work competing for a workforce that is not growing, and wages have moved accordingly. Agency rates, which many facilities rely on to fill rotas, have pulled permanent rates up with them.

Overwhelmingly outside hospitals. Skilled nursing facilities and long-term care are the largest employers, followed by home health agencies, outpatient clinics and physician practices, with correctional and school health making up a smaller share. LPNs looking for acute hospital work in this metro will find far fewer posts than the occupation's size suggests — the hospitals here hire registered nurses for bedside roles. That is a change from a generation ago and it shapes the whole career.

It is the standard next step and the numbers support it. This band tops out at $96,530, which is a good ceiling for a credential earned in about a year — but registered nursing in this metro pays substantially more and opens the hospital employment that LPN licensure largely does not. Bridge programmes are widely available across the region's community colleges, and employers in long-term care frequently support them because retaining a nurse in any capacity is preferable to losing them. The counterargument is time and cost, not opportunity.

It is tempting to read a 21% premium over the national median as a big-city adjustment. It is not: Chicago's cost of living is moderate by large-metro standards, and other occupations on this site show far smaller local premiums. What this figure records is a sector that cannot staff itself. Long-term care in this region operates on Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement with thin margins, and it has still been forced to raise wages because the alternative is closing beds. That is an unusual and revealing situation: the wage is high not because the sector is prosperous but because the labour is genuinely scarce.

Two decades ago licensed practical nurses were common on hospital floors across this region. Today they are rare there. Hospitals moved to all-registered-nurse bedside staffing for a mix of reasons — acuity of admitted patients, accreditation and magnet status considerations, and scope-of-practice constraints on what an LPN may do without supervision. The effect on the occupation was to concentrate it in post-acute and community settings. Anyone entering LPN training in this metro should understand that this is a long-term care and home health credential in practice, whatever the theoretical scope allows.

From the 10th percentile at $62,200 to the 90th at $96,530 is a range most LPNs can traverse within a decade through shift premiums, charge responsibility and specialist competencies. After that the band stops. This is one of the clearest examples on this site of an occupation whose economics point toward further education: the bridge to registered nursing is well trodden, widely supported, and moves a nurse into a materially higher band with acute-care employment attached. LPNs in this metro who intend to stay in the role long-term generally do so for schedule and patient relationships rather than for earnings growth.