America’s public-sector pension schemes are trillions of dollars short
Police officers, teachers and other public workers face a brutal reckoning
![](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20191116_FND001_0.jpg)
PERHAPS IT TAKES teachers to give politicians a lesson. Any official who wants to understand the terrible state of American public-sector pensions should read the financial report of the Illinois Teachers Pension Fund. Its funding ratio of 40.7% is one of the worst in America, according to the Centre for Retirement Research (CRR) in Boston (see table).
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “State of denial”
Finance & economics November 16th 2019
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