According to a new report by Truth in Accounting, Chicago’s debt burden is a little more than $45,000 per taxpayer. That’s much less than the city of New York. But if you add the burden from all of the other units of government, Chicago schools, the park district, and many more, the total taxpayer burden is $125,000, much more than the Big Apple.

The median assumed rate of return held by 130 public pension funds tracked by Wilshire Consulting dropped in 2017 to 7.25%.

Yet the 10-year annualized median was just 5.57%.

Illinois income inequality tops national average, but Lincoln among most equal U.S. cities

Here in Illinois, a teacher hired before 2011, who worked continuously after graduating college, is eligible for retirement, at a 75% pay replacement increasing at a compounded rate of 3% per year, at the age of 56. This is a benefit level that, even in the days of generous private-sector traditional defined benefit pensions, would have been exceedingly generous.