Illinois is the undisputed poster child for having the worst public pension system in the country.
With roughly 40 percent of the state’s $165 billion pension liability unfunded and the courts refusing to allow an overhaul of its highly flawed system, tens of thousands of public employees are left uncertain about their retirements. The state’s credit ratings has dropped to junk status.
A new report by the Pew Charitable Trust is a painful reminder that despite the economic recovery and improved revenue picture, many other states continue to gamble by operating with huge gaps between their employee pension obligations and revenues funneled into the retirement programs.
Indeed, the gap between what states have pledged to retirees and how much they are actually saving to fund those payments now totals $968 billion as of 2013, a $54 billion increase over the previous year, according to the report.
The picture looks even bleaker when short-falls from local employee pension programs are factored in. Then the overall employee pension gap widens to more than $1 trillion, according to Pew.
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10 comments:
Poor financial leadership.
Ignorant Democratic voters.
People act like Maryland isn't this stupid. They are wrong. O'Malley CUT State contributions to teacher pension in return for giving County leaders money to build new schools. O'Malley's developer friends get the money, teachers loose it. The idea was that the Counties (taxpayers) would make up the short fall thru increased revenue (taxes). Have you seen anything in the way of teacher pension contributions from County Government? Probably not and never will. The result is UNDERFUNDED pensions. Teachers lose, politicians gain.
Chicago runs the whole state. Chicago is in Cook county.
Everyone around calls it Crook county and for good reason.
Chicago invented:
Election fraud
Cronyism
Graft
Bribery
Corruption
Dead voters........
The list goes on Ad infinitum.
4:24 Yet the teachers union has always supported Democrats. In another few years, when the pension system is broke they will look back and wonder what happened. The old Maryland retirement system is still in effect for those were intelligent enough to hold on to it.
Growing up in Springfield, IL at age 19, I was offered to join a union and get all those benefits, pensions, and high pay (so I could pay dues).
I turned it down, predicting that the "Pensions" promise would never happen. None of what was laid out sounded in the least a remote possibility, and putting my retirement in other peoples' hands did not appeal to me.
As I was, at the time not a student of rocket science, and after 42 years of NEVER taking a rocket science course, I feel more than qualified in saying, "I told you so" to all those union "brothers" on their sinking ships.
Bon Voyage!
Federal pensions are next
Ahhh!! The black democratic vote finally rears it's ugly head. You can have as many entitlements programs you want but if no one pays for them and yhe unions bleed you dry WTF did you think.
A follow up, these people paid into their pension funds, and the promise should be kept at the expense of the unions.
This now bankrupts the unions, as well they should be with their Ponzi scheme.
hasn't this been going on the whole time Liberal Jim has been "always working for you" (the teachers who keep supporting him) ?
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