Illinois allocates more of its budget to pensions than any other state, but pension spending has only skyrocketed. A constitutional amendment is the only way to reform the state’s unsustainable and underfunded pension systems.

Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation pension debt shrank slightly after investments more than tripled predictions, thanks partly to COVID-19 stimulus. Experts caution 1 year cannot undo decades of overpromising and underfunding.

Illinois’ pension crisis has been a growing problem for decades, and its negative effects on state residents are well documented.1 Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and related government shutdown orders threaten to bring that long-running crisis closer to its breaking point. The state’s five pension systems collectively held nearly $139 billion of debt at...

More than 129,000 Illinois public pensioners will see expected payouts of $1 million or more during retirement.

Across all five state retirement systems, typical career workers pay for about 5% of the cost of their pension benefits. They receive an average of $1.7 million to $3.6 million.

Public pensions are already eating away Illinois government services, increasing by more than 500% during the past 20 years as spending on core services including child protection, state police and college money for poor students has dropped by nearly one-third since 2000. At the same time the clock is running out on the state’s public...

A plan that allowed some pension enrollees to cash in early on their earned retirement benefits in exchange for curbing future benefits has so far generated only 3% of its expected savings.