Prairie State Wire

Adam Schuster, senior director of budget and tax research for Illinois Policy, disagrees with a recent Pew Charitable Trusts report that says pension funds in Illinois are stable. 

"You're stable or you're not, and our pensions are not. Since 2009 when Pew is tracking this increase in pension spending, funding ratio fell from 54% to 39%. Pension debt grew from $54 B to $144 B. A deeper hole despite more taxpayer $ = ....stabilizing?" Schuster said in a post on Twitter. 

Pew estimates that retirement systems nationwide are more than 80% funded for the first time in more than a decade. The organization listed Illinois' pension fund as one becoming stable.

Pew identified a sizable funding gap between what states had promised their retirees and what they had put aside preceding the recession in a major 2010 study. The gap ultimately grew to over $1 trillion by 2015. 

Now, Pew projects the gap, or unfunded liability, could fall below $1 trillion due to a combination of policymaker efforts and windfall investment returns. 

Pew reported that stocks waged a "historic recovery" by the end of fiscal 2020, more than offsetting the 34% decline in market prices earlier in the year at the onset of the pandemic. 

On average, plans earned investment returns of over 25% for fiscal 2021, according to Pew.

States have increased contributions to their pension funds an average of 8% each year over the past decade, according to Pew. The four states with the most financially troubled pension systems – Illinois, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey – have increased contributions by an average of 16% a year over the same period.