Illinois Pension Crisis

When I was first deciding what I was going to research for our "Marketplace of Ideas" final issues project, I wasn't really sure what I would be able to find that we had not already somewhat touched upon in class discussions. We have researched and talked about everything from abortion to school violence, race or religion, freedom of speech or Invisible Children. I was on a mission to find something that had not necessarily been a big topic of discussion in class and something I could really dive into and teach people about.

 The Illinois Pension Crisis, as some like to put it, is a fairly new development in the economic standings of pension for teachers in Illinois. After the protests and chaos that ensued around the Wisconsin decision to cut out unions in negotiations for benefits as well as their collective bargaining rights, many states began to worry about the possibility that they may be targeted next. While the teacher’s unions in Illinois are safe, their pensions may not be. Each state in the United States of America is required to pay a pre-set amount of money into the pension fund for their state, ultimately paying the government so they in return can keep up with the demand of pension that is given to teachers after retirement. Around 1994, the Illinois government decided that they no longer wanted to pay into this system, therefore creating their own pension system that was kept within the state and allowed somewhat of a loophole for the state and allowing teachers to keep their growing pensions. While this seemed like a decent idea at the time, the more months and years that passed started adding up, in return continually adding to the amount of money Illinois owed to the government and their implemented pension fund. Now, seventeen years later, the government wants the billions of dollars Illinois owes to the pension fund and Illinois is screaming mercy because according to the state government; we’re broke! We don’t have the millions and millions of dollars that we should have been paying the government just like every other state did because we thought there was a way out and instead the country was keeping a tab on how much debt we were in with the pension fund. Now that the state is in this “pickle” if you will, the teachers are getting repeatedly bashed for their unwillingness to simply give up their pensions. Not many are focusing on the state and how the state government messed up, but instead are placing blame towards teachers who don’t want to give up the money some have worked 20+ years for. There has been talk of legislative reforms to make gaining pension slightly more difficult, possibly raising taxes, and even keeping money from some teachers because of the growing debt that Illinois has dug for themselves.