Thanks to new government reporting standards, Chicago’s municipal-workers and laborers pension funds’ debt doubled in 2015 to more than $21 billion. That’s $20,500 of pension debt per Chicago household.

The city’s rating from Fitch is now just one notch above junk status.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, the burden Chicagoans face from the government-worker pension crisis won’t be going away any time soon.

The city of Springfield’s local pensions are in crisis. But instead of facing this problem head on, Springfield Mayor Mike Houston is quibbling over what he calls “flaws” in a comprehensive report by the Illinois Policy Institute that measures the fiscal health of Illinois’ 114 largest cities. Our report found that Springfield scored worst among...

Our recent comprehensive report, “The crisis hits home: Illinois’ local pension problem,” reviewed the fiscal health of Illinois’ 114 largest cities to measure the impact of pension costs on taxpayers, city services and the security of city-worker pensions. Decatur received one of the lowest scores as a result of out-of-control pension costs. Here’s why: Taxpayers...

The Wall Street Journal’s article “Public Pension Red Alert” foreshadows more municipal bankruptcies countrywide as pension costs continue to spiral out of control. One of the cities facing the most stress nationally is Chicago. The city’s pension payments are set to jump to more than $1 billion as laws that allowed the city to skimp on pension payments...

Moody’s Investors Services recently cut the city of Chicago’s credit rating to Baa1 from A3 – citing pension debt as a key factor in the downgrade. Without real pension reform, a chain of credit downgrades will likely follow for Chicago’s sister governments. The Moody’s report noted that the recent passage of pension reforms for the...

Illinois’ collapsing state pension systems are seen as the poster child of pension crises across the nation. But another pension crisis is taking place even closer to home. There are nearly 650 locally run pension funds in Illinois, which cover retired police officers and firefighters, along with one consolidated fund for municipal retirees. These municipal...