It's George Will's turn to take a look at the under-funded pension crisis. Because most states' pension plans compute their present values -- and minimize required current contributions -- by assuming an unrealistic 8 percent annual return on investments, the cumulative funding gap of state pensions already may be $3 trillion, and certainly is rising. For example, last Wednesday's New York Times contained this attention-seizing bulletin: "An independent analysis of California's three big pension funds has found a hidden shortfall of more than half a trillion dollars, several times the amount reported by the funds and more than six times the value of the state's outstanding bonds." It is not news that California is America's home-grown Greece, but the condition of the three funds, which serve 2.6 million current and retired public employees, is going to exacerbate the state's decline by requiring significantly higher taxpayer contributions.And I found a new web site, PensionWatch. Take a look.
Related posts:
Is California bankrupt?
Mayor Daley: Day of reckoning coming for underfunded pensions
Unfunded pension liability at almost $6K per Chicagoan
More on the public sector pension crisis
Illinois is number one: In underfunded state employee pensions
The coming public employee pension bubble
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