Over 70,000 Illinoisans collecting state pensions have moved out, taking $2.4 billion away

Taxpayers, including me, are paying for their retirement. But like so many other Illinoisans these publicly-funded pensioners are bailing on this state.

Illinois is only one of two states that has lost population for five straight years.

From Jake Griffin in the Daily Herald:

More than 71,000 people collecting public pensions from six statewide retirement plans have moved out of Illinois, taking more than $2.4 billion annually with them.

That's roughly 18% of all the pensioners in those systems, according to a Daily Herald analysis of financial data obtained through public records requests with the six pension programs.

Florida leads all migration destinations with 14,030 Illinois pensioners, followed by Arizona and Wisconsin with more than 5,600 Illinois public pension recipients now living in each of those states.

According to a National League of Cities report, 90% of retired public employees generally stay in the area where they worked. But Illinois' higher migration rate for public pensioners mirrors the ongoing population decline in the state, which has seen a drop of 157,000 residents since 2013, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

It's not just the cold weather. High property taxes--which have been hiked a lot in recent years to pay for, you guessed it, under-funded pension plans--are named as top reason.

Illinois is suffering under a viscous circle. At the center of it is state House speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who has held this post for 34 of the last 36 years. He is also the chairman of the state Democratic Party.