State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) intensified her push for pension reform during a press conference Tuesday in Chicago where she made what she called a “transformational policy announcement.”
Ives, who is taking on Gov. Bruce Rauner in the 2018 Republican primary, said in a release she was moved to act by a recent Fitch Ratings report that found Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities were 22.8 percent of residents’ personal income in 2016, more than seven times the 3.1 median of states across the country.
WirePoints.com also recently reported Illinois pensions are down 65 percent at a time when U.S. markets are up 200 percent, begging the question of just how low they might fall if and when another recession strikes.
In the release, Ives added over the last five years the Illinois economy has grown at an inflation-adjusted annual pace of just 0.9 percent, the slowest in the Great Lakes area and half as fast as the U.S. overall.
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