The public pension funding gap

The amount owed to retirees 

is accelerating faster than assets 

on hand to pay those 

future obligations. 

Liabilities of major US pensions 

are up 64% since 2007, 

while assets are only up 30%.

New Jersey made less than 15% 

of its recommended pension payments f

rom 2009 to 2012. 

Now it has only a little more than 33% 

of the cash it needs to pay future benefits.

In Illinois, the Supreme Court threw out 

benefit cuts by the legislature 

expected to save tens of billions 

of dollars in 2015.

The number of pensioners went up 

thanks to longer lifespans 

and a wave of retirees 

over the last decade. 

The number of active workers 

remained relatively stable.

The state of Maine's fund serves 

about the same number of active 

workers that it did in 2008 (51,000) 

as the number of retirees jumped 32%, 

to about 45,000, in those ten years. 

Maine's pension fund paid $982 million 

in benefits in 2018, which was $394 million 

more than the contributions it received.