Chicago earned an upgrade from Fitch Ratings Thursday thanks to the city’s improving economy and declining long-term debt burden.
Fitch boosted the rating of the third-largest US city one notch to BBB+ from BBB, with a stable outlook. The upgrade comes less than a year after the city shed its lone junk rating from Moody’s Investors Service last November.
Chicago’s finances have long been strained by a growing unfunded pension liability and more recently by the cost to care for thousands of new migrants, but the trajectory has improved in recent years.
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The upgrade was “driven by a decline in the city’s long-term liability burden stemming from steady growth in the economic resource base and improved debt management practices,” Fitch wrote in the report.
