Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
The smartest Illinois residents are voting with their feet. The current strength of the job market outside of Illinois, along with the new found ability for many employees to work remotely as a result of both Covid and improved technology, will accelerate the loss of residents for Illinois over the next few years.