{"id":37241,"date":"2018-09-01T15:21:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T20:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37241"},"modified":"2018-09-01T15:21:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T20:21:40","slug":"moodys-illinois-pension-debt-to-revenue-ratio-hits-all-time-high-for-any-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37241","title":{"rendered":"Moody\u2019s: Illinois pension debt-to-revenue ratio hits all-time high for any state"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Moody\u2019s: Illinois pension debt-to-revenue ratio hits all-time high for any state<\/a><\/h3>\n

According to a new report by Moody\u2019s Investors Service, Illinois\u2019 unfunded pension liabilities equaled 601 percent of state revenues in 2017, a U.S. record.<\/p>\n

Illinois\u2019 pension debt has set a new record to which no state should aspire.<\/p>\n

Credit ratings agency Moody\u2019s Investors Service released a report<\/a> Aug. 27 comparing unfunded pension liabilities across all U.S. states. According to the report, Illinois\u2019 unfunded pension liabilities grew 25 percent in fiscal year 2017 to $250 billion. That equates to 601 percent of \u201cown source\u201d revenue, meaning money brought in by the state excluding federal funds. That ratio of pension debt to revenue is the highest on record for any U.S. state, according to Moody\u2019s. The national median is 107 percent.<\/p>\n

This matters much for the same reason banks look at an individual\u2019s debt-to-income ratio<\/a> when considering applications for a personal loan. Banks typically won\u2019t issue a qualified mortgage to anyone with a debt-to-income ratio of more than 43 percent.<\/p>\n

When a state\u2019s pension debts far exceed its revenue, that means those debts are less likely to be repaid. Illinois\u2019 inability to manage its pension system in a sustainable and affordable way is one of the main reasons both Moody\u2019s and S&P Global Ratings put the Prairie State\u2019s bond rating just one notch above \u201cjunk\u201d status.<\/a> The state\u2019s credit rating has been downgraded 21 times since 2009, primarily due to runaway pension debt.<\/p>\n

\"illinois<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A low bond rating increases the cost of borrowing money for taxpayers and makes it difficult for state government to invest in core services residents want, such as needed infrastructure improvements.<\/p>\n

Other measures of the state\u2019s ability to repay pension debt tell a similarly bad story for Illinois. The state has the worst pension debt in the nation as a percentage of both GDP and personal income, which are broad economic measures that indicate how much money is being brought in by the funding sources for government expenditures: individual and corporate taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moody\u2019s: Illinois pension debt-to-revenue ratio hits all-time high for any state According to a new report by Moody\u2019s Investors Service, Illinois\u2019 unfunded pension liabilities equaled 601 percent of state revenues in 2017, a U.S. record. Illinois\u2019 pension debt has set a new record to which no state should aspire. Credit ratings agency Moody\u2019s Investors Service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21478,195,21479,9989,541,21480,7383],"class_list":["post-37241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-adam-schuster","tag-debt","tag-debt-to-revenue","tag-illinois","tag-moodys","tag-public-pension-debt","tag-public-pensions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37242,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37241\/revisions\/37242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}