Rita is a Local Analyst who focuses on equity and fairness. Prior to joining ITEP, Rita worked for the Cook County Treasurer’s Office on research related to property taxation, tax collection, and municipal debt. She has also worked on issues including fines and fees, state block grants, and homelessness prevention.
She has a Master of Public Policy from the Harris School at the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Chicago.
December 19, 2025 • By Neva Butkus, Rita Jefferson
This proposal would disrupt the state’s housing market and jeopardize local revenues while doing very little to help workers and families struggling to pay their property tax bills – just as Prop 13 did in California.
November 17, 2025 • By Rita Jefferson
Vacancy taxes will not single-handedly solve problems in cities, but they are worth considering to address housing shortages, land use, and building thriving communities.
February 11, 2026 • By Rita Jefferson
As the legislative session continues and the opportunity to pass reform dissipates, lawmakers will need to conduct a delicate balancing act to ensure they do not solve one conundrum by creating a potentially bigger one. Read more.
October 30, 2025 • By Rita Jefferson
“We really do have to deal with the affordability problem of housing in this country at a very basic level in order to get a handle on property taxes. But the way to do that is not to cut property taxes,” [Rita] Jefferson says. Read more.
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.