Cook County, Illinois / Cermak Health Services / Optometrist
Job-title file
Carry out the duties of this position in support of the agency's public mission.
1 employees hold this title in Cermak Health Services. Median total compensation for the role is $31,387, above the department median of $15,658.
Compared with the local labor market
Across all employers in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN area, the median wage for Optometrists — about 1,160 people — is $145,630. Cermak Health Services pays a median base salary of $31,387 for this role, 78% below that figure — below the 10th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
The bar is the range of annual wages for Optometrists across every employer in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN area, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Cermak Health Services’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Optometrists — about 42,790 people — is $136,570. Cermak Health Services’s median base salary is 77% below that national figure, below the 10th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN range relative to the national one.
Median total compensation for this role at Cermak Health Services is $31,387, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
Optometrist is held in 2 Cook County, Illinois departments. In Cermak Health Services, the median of $31,387 ranks #2 of 2.
Median total compensation for the Optometrist role in other Cook County, Illinoisdepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.
Compare jurisdictions
This role is reported in 2 jurisdictions. See Optometrist across all of Cook County, Illinois →
Median total compensation for comparable Optometrist roles in other jurisdictions. Titles are matched by normalized name across sources, not identical job classification, and pay is not cost-of-living adjusted. Each bar links to that jurisdiction’s page for the role.
Record list
Page 1
Optometrist/Cermak Health Services
Source-specific fields
Ludmila Weinstein works as a Optometrist for Cermak Health Services. Their tenure dates to 1995, about 23 years. Ludmila earned $31,387 in 2018.