The pandemic, lockdowns, protests and violence have all drawn attention away from Illinois' biggest fiscal problem: its worst-in-the-nation pension crisis.
But pensions can't be ignored. Their growing costs will make all of Illinois' problems worse. Illinoisans must demand reform now or this state's financial crisis will become nothing short of a calamity.
Unfortunately, the only option Illinois politicians are giving residents is whether or not to hike taxes. That's a false choice that will do nothing to fix Illinois' problems.
Retirement debts are overwhelming every constituency in Illinois. Retirement security for most government workers has collapsed. Spending on Illinois’ most vulnerable is being crowded out as retirement costs eat up more than a quarter of the state’s budget. And ordinary residents who pay for the costs of their public servants are being crushed by the country’s highest property taxes and one of the nation’s highest combined state and local tax burdens.
All that's fueled Illinois' decline. It's become too expensive to live here. There aren’t enough good jobs. And Illinoisans no longer trust their government. That's led to Illinois becoming a national outlier, and in many cases, the extreme outlier – on almost every financial, economic and demographic metric that matters.
It's not like Illinois pols weren't warned over and over again. The big three rating agencies have downgraded the state's credit 22 times over the past 11 years. Today, Illinois is rated just one notch from junk, by far the lowest in the nation.
Chicago is even worse off. Both the city and CPS are already junk-rated.
Politicians cannot avoid the inevitable. There is no fixing Illinois without changing the current pension system and dramatically reducing the state’s retirement debts. That's why Wirepoints has crafted a comprehensive pension reform plan to do just that. Our new special report: Solving Illinois’ Pension Problem: Why It’s Legal, Why It’s Necessary and What It Looks Like, will be released in four parts over four weeks.
The first part of Wirepoints’ four-part series lays out Illinois' extreme outlier status and the negative impact that has on people’s lives and livelihoods. Read Part 1: Illinois is the Nation’s Extreme Outlier, here.
The graphics in Part 1 – showing where Illinois ranks against the other 50 states – should tell Illinoisans all they need to know about the state's dismal situation. Politicians' preferred "solution" of tax hikes will only make things worse.
Illinoisans deserve better. They deserve pension reform. They should demand it.
Join us at Pension Solutions and help us champion pension reform.