Illinois teacher pensions. Protections and threats.
Our state constitution protects us. But the wolves are always at the door.
Unlike Social Security - which Illinois teachers generally do not receive - our pensions are not tethered to the CPI or any other measure of inflation.
We get a 3% increase in our pension every February no matter what.
For twenty years that averaged out to about the cost of living. Now that we are in the middle of an inflationary period, we are falling behind.
Three percent won’t pay the rent.
I wrote the other day that teacher pay already is less than the compensation of those working with similar education and degrees. The past ten years have seen teacher compensation fall even farther behind those working in comparable jobs.
Lower pay reduces the amount of our retirement benefit as well.
It is one reason for the national teacher shortages.
Bloomberg reports that public pensions are currently taking a huge hit.
US public pension funds are on pace for their deepest financial setback since the Great Recession as turmoil in global markets this year threaten to leave taxpayers and government workers on the hook.
Steep stock and bond losses are set to leave state and local pensions this year with enough to cover 77.9% of all the benefits that have been promised, down from 84.8% in 2021, according to the New York-based nonprofit Equable Institute. That reflects almost a half trillion dollar increase in the gap between assets and what’s owed to retirees. The biggest US fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, said this week it lost 6.1%, its worst performance since 2009.
Fortunately, Illinois public workers have some protections against cuts or increases in contributions.
An Illinois Supreme Court ruling in 2015 unanimously ruled that Illinois public pensions could not be diminished or impaired.
That is a huge protection for public employees that does not exist in most other states.
But it should.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruling hasn’t prevented the enemies of public employees from continuing to target our pensions.
I filed to amend the pension protection clause as a way to spark a conversation with workers, not union bosses and the political elites who use state workers as bargaining chips in every election.
Bailey is one of those pension thieves that want to remove the pension protect clause, or as he says “amend” it.
Bailey must surely know that even if they could remove or amend the pension protection clause from the constitution it could not retroactively impact current members of the pension system, active or retired.
