Stanford: Public Pension Debt Jumps 84%, to $4.8 trillion

Breitbart ^ | 11 May 2016 | Chriss W. Street

[george76]

the public pension debt for the 50 states and the District of Columbia jumped 84 percent in recent years, from $2.625 trillion in 2008 to $4.833 trillion in 2014.

...

The highest pension debt/household is in Alaska, with an estimated $113,137 figure; Illinois and California are in the second and third highest rankings at more than $77,000 per household.” The lowest state pension debt per household is in Tennessee at $17,761.

Illinois has the lowest “market funded ratio” (value of pension assets divided by market liability), at 23.3 percent. The other 49 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. have a market funded ratio that is almost twice as high, at 41.4 percent.

Despite over $8 trillion in federal deficit spending flowing to the states in the 6 years from 2008 to 2014, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research report demonstrates that due to increasingly underfunded public employee pensions, the financial solvency for most states has declined substantially during the period.

[petercooper]

Apparently none of these big pension funds have ever used the services of an actuary. Brilliant.

[jsanders2001]

Hint: when derby suddenly jumps on a pension fund it usually means someone has been dipping into the funds. Have worked RICO cases involving pension funds and this is usually the case. My first stop is to go directly to the fund manger / administrator because they’re almost always the cause. If they put up a big fuss when you want to review the books or subpoena the bank records you know.

[lacrew]

This is no accident. They just operate on an assumption that the first politician who acts like an adult and tries to stop the madness will get booted out of office...so most politicians will just keep robbing Peter.

[sphinx]

When ERISA was passed in 1974, requiring full funding of private pension plans, some suggested applying the same standard to the public sector. This, of course, would have constrained the vote-buying binges of the pols of that time, so the idea was rejected. The rationalization was that government was different. Government was special. Government was so special that it was insulting even to question its prudence and integrity. Only evil Republicans would even suggest that government be held to the same actuarial standards as private sector employers. And so here we are.

Not one penny of bailout. Let the public plans write down their benefits to fit their funding stream. That should include Social Security, which is underfunded by about 30 percent.

And then move all future public pensions, including Social Security, to a fully funded basis.

[Covenantor]

Public worker unions have a death lock...

[Oatka]

Great minds. :-)

[PGR88]

A bankruptcy of the Federal Government (and thus the States as well) would have many bad consequences - but would have many good consequences as well.

[abb]

Apparently none of these big pension funds have ever used the services of an actuary.

They have here in Louisiana. But the warnings just go in one ear and out the other. The response of the Deadhead Caucus (govt employees and retireds) is: "That's somebody else's problem."