Unfunded Pension Obligations Haunt 61 American Cities

And the gap is widening

As the Great Recession ended, 61 key cities across America—the most populous one in each state plus all others with more than 500,000 people—emerged with a gap of more than $217 billion between what they had promised their workers in pensions and retiree health care and what they had saved to pay that bill. While states have a much larger shortfall, cities face the same daunting challenges posed by unfunded liabilities for their public sector retirement benefits.

For pensions, these cities had a shortfall of $99 billion in fiscal year 2009, the most recent year with complete data. The gap continued to widen in fiscal year 2010 as reflected by complete data for 40 of the cities, which saw unfunded pension liabilities rise by another 15 percent.