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The Reason Foundation released its State Pension Tracker, which
forecasts state pension plans for fiscal year 2023.
"It’s basically a dashboard that gives the first peek into what
unfunded liabilities for state-run pensions are going to look
like for 2023,” Senior Policy Analyst Zachary Christenson said.
Based on an estimated annual investment return of 7% for public
pension plans, Reason Foundation forecasts the 118 state pension
systems analyzed nationwide have $1.3 trillion in total unfunded
liabilities at the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
A
large part of that enormous amount is from Illinois. Christenson
said Illinois is one of the states with the most public pension
debt, with a funded ratio of less than 53%.
“That's a huge, huge problem and basically the taxpayers are
going to have to come up with $144 billion sometime over the
next 20 to 30 years,” Christenson said.
Only California has more unfunded public pension liabilities
than Illinois. At the other end of the spectrum is Washington,
where their pension plan sits at around 107% funded and has a
surplus of $8 billion.
Christensen said the dire situation with Illinois’ public
pension plan has been ongoing for years.
“Illinois’ pensions have been low 50s to sub-50 percent funded
since the Great Recession, which means they only have half of
what they need to fulfill the promises that they’ve already made
to public workers,” Christensen said.
Illinois lawmakers plan to look at several pension proposals and
could address the matter in future legislative sessions.
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