“You may already be aware that many state and local public pensions are in trouble,” says Victor V. Claar in this week’s Acton Commentary. “By one estimate, the nation’s state, county, and municipal governments face bined funding shortfall of about $5 trillion. . . But what you may not know is that many private pension funds are in trouble, too.”

How did this happen? It depends on who you ask, but one can point to various culprits that include roller-coaster stock prices since 2001, the fact that baby boomers are moving into retirement, a drop in tax revenues driven by the Great Recession, and the nation’s recent household and business migration patterns—including the exit of both from historically vibrant cities like Detroit. After Detroit declared bankruptcy in 2013 its pensioners saw their benefits cut considerably.

The full text of the essay can be found here. For more on this topic, see also:Confronting The Retirement Funding Calamity: A Christian Perspective.

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