Center for Pension Integrity

The Center for Pension Integrity seeks to solve the problem of underfunding of all the major pension plans in the city of Chicago. For decades, the promise and the money have been disconnected in Chicago, but in recent years the gap has widened considerably.

This problem has arisen because government has been unusually generous with benefits, has been cavalier about paying for them and has found it impossible to revise pension plans.

To “catch up” the plans to just 90 percent funding, the government will need to pay more than $170 billion over the next 40 years. This burdens the young and unborn who had nothing to do with incurring the debt and received no benefit.

Assets dissipate as liability balloons. There is no integrity to this vital component of Chicago’s city government.

The Center is committed to finding solutions to this problem that are permitted by law and to changing laws, where possible, to enable government to close this gap sooner and not later.

The Center has conducted many hours of focus groups with active and retired city workers and listened to their fears and concerns. It has polled hundreds of Chicago citizens and taxpayers. It has convened meetings to explore solutions and written articles to highlight the problem and advocate for specific solutions.

The Center’s latest recommendations are described in the chapter on pensions in the book, The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities.