A Midwestern city has fostered a rocky financial situation by offering extremely generous retirement benefits to public workers, experts say.
Chicago‘s projected budget deficit is a whopping $982.4 million, according to The Civic Federation.
Despite several tactics to save the city from bankruptcy, politicians have failed to get to the root of the issue – increasing pension payments to Chicago’s more than 40,000 public employees.
‘Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians – everyone loves them, and the bills don’t arrive until later,’ Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a New York Times opinions piece.
‘They can be ruinous for a city’s long-term fiscal health.’
