Public pensions in Illinois

• Key terms related to ESG
• Enacted ESG legislation
• Areas of inquiry and disagreement
• Opposition to ESG
• Federal ESG rules and regulations
• Public pension information by state
• Economy and Society: Ballotpedia's weekly ESG newsletter
  • Subscribe here

Illinois information (2020)

Total contributions: $16,830,315,000

Employee contributions: $2,979,018,000

Government contributions: $13,851,297,000

Total payments: $20,111,755,000

Total cash and investment holdings: $185,084,040,000

Number of state and local pension systems: 654

Active membership: 604,394

Inactive membership: 453,137

Key terms

Actuarial value of assets (AVA)

Unfunded actuarial accrued liability (UAAL)

Annual required contribution (ARC)

Discount rate • Funded ratio

Rate of return • Active member

Inactive member • OPEB

Hover over the above terms for definitions.

Note: This page utilizes information from a variety of sources. The information presented on this page reflects the most recent data available as of March 2022.

Illinois public pensions are the state mechanism by which state and many local government employees in Illinois receive retirement benefits.

There were 654 public pension systems in Illinois as of 2020. Of these, 6 were state-level programs. Membership in Illinois' various pension systems totaled 1,599,753, as of fiscal year 2020. Of these, 604,394 were active members.

HIGHLIGHTS

Total contributions of $16.8 billion were made to Illinois' state and local pension systems, in fiscal year 2020. Of this amount, $3.0 billion came from employees.

Illinois' state and local pension systems made payments totaling $20.1 billion, in fiscal year 2020.

Illinois' state and local pension systems held $185.1 billion in total cash and investment holdings, as of fiscal year 2020.

See the sections below for specific information on pension systems in Illinois:

1. General information: This section outlines the different types of pensions systems available in the state, as well as membership information.
2. Contributions: This section details the contributions made to state-level pension systems, and the source of the contributions.
3. Payments: This section details the payments made by the pensions systems, and details what kinds of payments were made.
4. Cash and investment holdings: This section provides information about the total amount of cash and investments the state's pension systems have, and what kinds of investments they have made.
5. Pension health: This section outlines the findings of two reports regarding pension health, including how many liabilities the state pension systems have and how funded they are.

General information

See also: Pension data, U.S. Census

Illinois had six state pension plans listed as of 2020, according to the Illinois State Comptroller website:

1. Illinois State Employees' Retirement System (SERS)
2. Illinois State Universities Retirement System (SURS)
3. Illinois Judges' Retirement System (JRS)
4. Illinois General Assembly Retirement System (GARS)
5. Teachers' Retirement System of Illinois (TRS)
6. Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund (CTPF)

In addition to the aforementioned state-level pension systems, there were 648 locally administered pension systems in Illinois.

The table below provides general pension system information for Illinois.

General pension system information in Illinois
Year	Systems		Total members*	Active members		Inactive members
	State	Local		Members	Percent of total	Members	Percent of total
2020	6	648	1,599,753	604,394	37.78%	453,137	28.33%
2016	6	654	972,667	597,507	61.43%	375,160	38.57%
*This total also includes beneficiaries receiving periodic benefit payments who are not considered ‘active’ or ‘inactive.’ Source: United States Census Bureau

Contributions

See also: Pension contribution and payment data, U.S. Census

Pension contributions are the funds paid into pension systems. These contributions come from the employer (in the case of public pensions, the government) and employees. Investment earnings are the main source of increases in the fund and are listed separately in the rightmost column in the below table.

In the fiscal year 2020, total contributions of $16.8 billion were made to Illinois' state and local pension systems. Of this amount, $3.0 billion came from employees. The remainder came from state and local governments. The table below provides information about pension contributions in Illinois and surrounding states in the fiscal year 2020. All dollar amounts displayed should be multiplied by 1,000 ($240,000 is equal to $240,000,000).

Pension contributions in Illinois (dollars in thousands)
Year	Total contributions from employees and employers	Employee contributions		Government contributions		Earnings on investments
		Contributions	Percentage of total	Contributions	Percentage of total
2020	$16,830,315	$2,979,018	17.70%	$13,851,297	82.30%	$4,307,581
2016	$13,902,184	$2,771,651	19.94%	$11,130,532	80.06%	$1,531,618
Source: United States Census Bureau

Payments

See also: Pension contribution and payment data, U.S. Census

Payments are the amounts paid to pension recipients by their pension plans. Pension payments include benefits and withdrawals. Benefits are the regular payments made by a pension plan to the plan's recipients. Pension beneficiaries may also withdraw funds if they leave the system before they receive regular benefits.

In the fiscal year 2020, Illinois' state and local pension systems made payments totaling $20.1 billion. The table below provides pension payment information for Illinois and surrounding states in the fiscal year 2020. The columns labeled "Benefits," and "Withdrawals," are subsets of total payments. All dollar amounts displayed should be multiplied by 1,000 ($240,000 is equal to $240,000,000).

Pension payments in Illinois (dollars in thousands)
Year	Total payments	Benefits	Withdrawals	Administrative costs
2020	$20,111,755	$20,111,755	$402,152	$1,378,272
2016	$18,658,398	$17,598,347	$329,236	$730,845
Source: United States Census Bureau

Unfunded liabilities

See also: Other post-employment benefits, data

In addition to standard pension payments, some plans may offer pensioners additional benefits. These benefits, sometimes referred to as other post-employment benefits, or OPEBs, consist of health insurance, life insurance, or other benefits that the pensioner may have received while employed. The cost of these benefits can prove complicated for actuaries to calculate because of the changes in fields like medicine, which can result in large changes in spending year to year. This, coupled with the normal challenges in calculating and meeting pension requirements, can result in funding shortages—or unfunded liabilities—for pension plans.

According to Pew Charitable Trust, unfunded liabilities totaled nearly $1.3 trillion throughout the country in 2019. Illinois was reported to have about $145.3 billion in unfunded liabilities. Illinois' funding ratio (total liabilities: total assets) was 38.90%.

The chart below displays the unfunded liabilities for Illinois. All dollar amounts displayed should be multiplied by 1,000. For instance, $300 translates to $300,000.

Unfunded liabilities in Illinois (dollars in thousands)
Year	Unfunded liabilities	Funding ratio
2019	$145,321,479	38.90%
2016	$149,169,000	36.00%
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

Cash and investment holdings

See also: Pension data, U.S. Census

Investments are a crucial part of the pension process. The goal is that, by investing pension contributions, the pensioner will receive more money when he or she retires than he or she and the employer were able to contribute. These investments are made in cash, short-term investments, securities like equities and bonds, or other assets. Cash investments are usually low-risk, short-term investments that have a lower rate of return than other types of investments. Other short-term investments are riskier than cash investments, but have the potential for greater returns. Securities can refer to stocks, bonds, or other types of financial certificates that hold some sort of financial value. As the values of these securities change, they can be traded to make a profit. While there are other applications of securities investments, this represents one of the most common practices.

As of the fiscal year 2020, Illinois' state and local pension systems held $185.1 billion in total cash and investment holdings. The table below summarizes pension system cash and investment holdings for Illinois and surrounding states. The columns labeled "Total cash and short-term investments" and "Total other investments" are subsets of the grand total. All dollar amounts displayed should be multiplied by 1,000 ($240,000 is equal to $240,000,000).

Total cash and investment holdings in Illinois (dollars in thousands)
Year	Grand total	Total cash and short-term investments	Total other investments
2020	$185,084,040	$3,435,898	$181,648,142
2016	$155,817,713	$6,220,160	$149,597,553
Source: United States Census Bureau

Pension health

See also: Pension health in Illinois and Public pension health by state

Pension health is a term used to describe the fiscal condition of a pension system. It can be difficult to gauge pension health in each state; studies use a variety of calculations to determine a pension system's average liabilities, unfunded liabilities, funded ratio, and other metrics. To learn more about pension health in Illinois, click here.

Recent legislation

The following is a list of recent pension policy bills that have been introduced in or passed by the Illinois state legislature. To learn more about each of these bills, click the bill title. This information is provided by BillTrack50 and LegiScan.

'Note: Due to the nature of the sorting process used to generate this list, some results may not be relevant to the topic. If no bills are displayed below, then no legislation pertaining to this topic has been introduced in the legislature recently.

Recent news

This section links to a Google news search for the term "Illinois + public + pensions"

Illinois public pensions news feed

See also

• Public pensions in the United States
• Historical Illinois pension information
• Illinois state budget and finances
• Public policy in Illinois
• Tax policy in Illinois
• Pension statistics
• Pension health in Illinois
• Public pensions

External links

• United States Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Public Pensions 2020