State Pension Funds Headed For Crisis Of National Proportions

Taxpayers, public workers and state and federal officials alike have cause for serious concern about an issue that often falls under the radar but poses serious risk to the future health of the national economy: state pension liabilities. If the state's three main pension funds earn 8 percent returns and the state makes contributions accordingly, the funds will run out of money in 2018. In the following years, benefit payments owed to existing state workers would be an estimated $14 billion - more than half the revenue Illinois is projected to receive in 2010. States are legally obligated to make these payments.