Chalmers was born in Brisbane and attended the Australian National University, where he completed a doctorate in political science.

At the 2013 Australian federal election, Chalmers won the seat of Rankin in Brisbane's south, entering the House of Representatives.

He served in the shadow ministries of Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese, before assuming the role of Treasurer after Labor's victory in the 2022 federal election.

[7] In the same year he published Glory Daze, a book about the disconnect between Australia's strong economic performance and popular discontent with government.

He was also the interim Minister for Home Affairs until the full ministry was sworn in after the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

[24][25] In 2016 he co-founded the Courtyard Group, a roundtable linking Labor MPs with "Australia's leading progressive thinkers from business, academia, media, and consumer advocacy bodies".

[26] According to political scientist Carol Johnson, Chalmers' 2013 book Glory Daze "defined Labor as standing for intergenerational mobility, aspiration and the Fair Go, while emphasising the importance of sound economic management".

His 2017 book Changing Jobs: The fair go in the new machine age, co-authored with telecommunications executive Mike Quigley, argued that future governments should consider a robot tax to reduce the impact of technological unemployment.

In the lead-up to the 2022 election, Chalmers stated that an ALP government would not increase taxes other than on multinational corporations.

In March 2013, Chalmers married Laura Anderson, a journalist and writer who worked as a staffer to Penny Wong and Julia Gillard.