Impact

What this costs Chicago.

So what? Headline numbers like $36.5 billion are abstract. Here's what our pension liability actually costs Chicagoans.

What it costs you, year by year.

To deal with our unfunded liability, Chicago's annual pension contribution has grown nearly six-fold since 2010. By FY2024 the city was paying $2,370 per household into the four funds to keep the system on its statutory glide path. Under the AV baseline, that figure stays elevated through the late 2050s.

How growth makes this easier

Here's the key thing to understand: our liabilities are fixed dollar amounts. Based on the Illinois Constitution, we have no real way of reducing those liabilities in absolute terms - but because they're fixed liabilities, they also don't scale up as the city grows. Growth to our tax base or population spread the burden over a larger populace - making our path out that much easier to bear.

From 2010 to 2020, Chicago grew by just ~1.9% (about +0.2% per year). Over the same decade, Sun Belt cities like Austin and Fort Worth grew by roughly 2% per year - about ten times faster. And that compounds: an extra ~2 percentage points of population growth a year would lower the per-person burden by nearly 50% by 2055.

Use the controls below to control the denominator and watch how faster growth rates make our challenge easier.

Growth presets are grounded in Census data. Recent trend is Chicago's 2010-2020 pace (+1.9% over the decade, about +0.2%/yr); Sun Belt pace matches the fastest-growing large U.S. cities (Fort Worth +2.2%, Austin metro +2.3%, 2023-24); and Decline reflects the city's 2000s and post-2020 losses.

79% of your tax bill from the City of Chicago goes to pensions.

Chicago's property tax levy funds three things: pensions, debt service on city bonds, and the public library system. In FY2024, of the city's $1.77B property tax levy, $1.40B (79%) went to the four pension funds. That works out to about $1,207 per household in Chicago.

Over the next 30 years, that adds up.

Under the AV baseline schedule, Chicago is on the hook for roughly $103 billion in employer pension contributions between now and 2055. That's more than $88,000 per household.