October 10, 2014: In 2013, pension debt for Illinois, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York increased by at least four billion dollars per state. From 2012 to 2013, these states had the largest pension debt increase across the 50 states.
State government officials are required to balance their budgets. Instead, they accumulate debt by hiding retirement costs on their ‘credit cards,’ accumulating debt for future taxpayers to cover.
State |
2012 Pension Debt |
2013 Pension Debt |
Increase |
Illinois |
$94.58B
|
$100.5B
|
$5.92B
|
California |
$53.44B
|
$59.43B
|
$5.99B
|
Texas |
$31.64B
|
$35.86B
|
$4.22B
|
Pennsylvania |
$29.26B
|
$34.02B
|
$4.76B
|
Massachusetts |
$23.95B
|
$30.26B
|
$6.31B
|
New York |
$8.75B
|
$16.99B
|
$8.24B
|
Clearly, the requirements for a balanced budget are not working. All 50 states hide retirement debt from their citizens and legislators, in footnotes and external reports, making it difficult for
- Legislators to work on sustainable options to reduce conflicts between current spending and pension funding
- Citizens to participate knowledgeably in their government and hold their elected officials accountable
To prevent governments from accumulating “credit card” debt for today’s services that taxpayers will have to pay for in the future, Truth in Accounting believes states should adopt ‘FACT – Based Budgeting’ (Full Accrual and Calculation Techniques).
- FACT – based budgeting requires each year’s budget to include estimates of year-end debt, as well as current year spending
- Both legislators and citizens would have timely, transparent, truthful information to evaluate spending proposals
- See page 12 and Appendix IX of Truth in Accounting’s 2013 Financial State of the States for more information
See CA, IL, MA, NY, PA and TX Pension Debt 2009-2013 – check your state by selecting ‘Edit Chart Criteria’ at the bottom of this chart. Then, select your state on the next page and scroll down to ‘Generate Chart.’