American cities with financial problems and those in good shape

Moody’s looked at America’s 25 biggest cities. 

The chart shows only the worst five and best five, out of America's 25 biggest cities.

Blue line

= debt service (what the city pays each year for borrowed money),

Green line 

= healthcare costs for retirees (called “OPEB”),

Black line 

= payments into pensions just to stay even, without running up bigger unfunded liabilities (called “pension treadwater”).

Then the chart shows the sum of all three costs as a percentage of total city operating revenues.

CHICAGO  IS  THE  WORST  CITY:

About 45% of all the money Chicago takes in is needed for the three cost items -- the worst of all major American cities. 

The 45% is assuming the city was really paying that "treadwater" number into its pensions, which it is not (another report by a JP Morgan, published n the Wall Street Journal, concluded that if those same three items were properly measured. and Chicago measured retiree debts the way it should be doing, they’d consume a stunning 60% of the city’s revenue, by far the worst in the nation).

When 45% (or 60%) of the city’s revenue consumed by just those three items, taxes have to rise to uncompetitive levels, and city services become inferior.

Chicago’s debt service is about twice the average of those 25 cities. 

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Chicago is worst of all 25 cities on the pension treadwater number, and the total of all three items.