Pappas Studies

First-of-its-kind analysis of nearly 1.8 million bills.
$16.1 billion collected this year, an increase of $534 million from last year (3.4%).
Commercial property billed more than $7 billion, increase of 410 million (6.2%) from last year.
Residential property billed $8.9 billion, increase of 114 million (1.3%) from last year.
Tax increases hit majority Black and Latino communities – homes and businesses – the hardest.

Compiled data for all Cook County property for 20 years.
Total taxes billed increased 99 percent, from $7.85 billion to $15.58 billion from 2000 to 2019.
Residential properties skyrocketed 164% in Chicago, 116% in suburbs.
Commercial properties jumped 81% in Chicago, 54% in suburbs.
The cost of living rose just 36% over 20 years, wages for workers rose by 57%.
Any taxpayer can see their own 20-year increase on cookcountytreasurer.com.

Discloses the Top 50 Property Index Numbers (PINs) with the largest tax increases from 2000 to 2019 in Chicago and the suburbs, for both residential and commercial property.
The bill for a condominium on East Lake Shore Drive in Chicago jumped 1,890%, from $6,700 to nearly $134,000
A two-story house in suburban Winnetka saw a 1,174 percent tax increase, from $53,000 to $675,000.

Since 2011:
1. Only 29% of the voting-age population in Chicago has cast ballots in elections.
2. The voting-age percentage is 26% in suburban areas.

The office has already collected more than 99.77 percent of property taxes when the delinquent sale takes place.
Areas in Cook County that have the most delinquent properties also are:
1. losing population
2. have large property tax increases
3. have the most violent crime
Of the 51,320 properties offered at the last seven sales, 25,601 (50%) are vacant lots.

Since 2009, collecting debt figures for 547 local governments in Cook County that set 2,200 different taxing district levies.
Total debt in Cook County is $153.4 billion.
From 2016 to early 2021, the total debt grew by $22.8 billion (16.6%)
During that same period, the consumer price index (CPI) in the Chicago region grew by 8%.
Much of the debt is rooted in unfunded pension liabilities.
New functionality on cookcountytreasurer.com allows individual property owners to see the total amount of local government debt attributed to that property.
In some municipalities, property taxes are so high that homeowners end up paying far more in taxes over the course of a 30-year mortgage than they paid for the home itself.