Bloomberg.com reports: Public pensions in the U.S. had total liabilities of $2.9 trillion as of Dec. 16, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Their total assets are about 30 percent less than that, at $2 trillion. With stock market losses this year, public pensions in the U.S. are now underfunded by more than $1 trillion.
I love this quote from Jeremy Gold of Morgan Stanley: Public pension funds have to stop pushing the costs of retirement benefits for current workers into the future You’re putting a bigger burden on your children. It amounts to a transfer from tomorrow’s taxpayers to today’s employees.
In Pensacola, future taxpayers are paying for past workers because the old city councils didn’t properly fund the pensions, increased benefits without figuring out how to pay for them and overestimated the rate of return on investments.
Read Bloomberg.