Chicago's unfunded pension benefits continue to rise way above the national average for the top U.S. cities, growing from $20 billion in 2014 to over $37 billion in 2023.  The funding of pensions and OPEB has been a financial and poltical problem for years in Chicago, with no end in sight. 

Unfunded pension benefits represents the total amount of pension liabilities for which the government does not have assets to pay benefits. It is calculated by summing the "net pension liabilities" and "net pension assets" of every plan for which that government is responsible, taking into account its share of multiple employer plans. This data is collected from each city's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, as well as pension plan financial and actuarial reports.

Pension liabilities are determined through a calculation known as "discounting," which converts the future value of benefit payments into present-day dollars. The size of the present value of the liability depends heavily on the 'discount rate,' which is the interest rate that is assumed in the cost to fund the benefit payments.

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Across all 50 states from 2019 to 2023, the average percentage change in intergovernmental revenue per capita (the most efficient way to compare states) was a striking 58 percent!  The percentage change ranged from 30.6 percent in Idaho to 114 percent  in Oklahoma. Since the lion’s share of intergovernmental revenue to states comes from the federal government, and most of the increase since 2019 was Covid aid, the question is how will states make up the difference when the Covid grant monies run out. Presumably, the states will have to raise taxes or cut services significantly. States have become used to that extra revenue. Will they be prepared for what comes next?  

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Personal income per capita in the United States grew on average $12,816 or 23.9 percent since 2019, which certainly sounds like a big jump.  However, in that same time period personal consumption per capita also rose significantly; on average between 2019 and 2023 (the most recent data available) personal consumption spending went up 25.9 percent.  These figures are not adjusted for inflation, but they show that spending increased more than personal income.

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The chart below illustrates three different measures of the federal deficit. You choose: Which number do you like best? 

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Between 2019 and 2024 public school enrollment in the U.S. decreased by over 1.3 million.  The three states that lost the most were California, New York and Illinois.  The states that gained the most students were Texas, Florida and South Carolina. This is not all that surprising since these three states have also ranked among the states to have the largest percentage increases in population in recent years, while the biggest losers have consistently ranked among the states to lose the most residents. There are, of course, myriad reasons that overall student enrollment has declined--too many to speculate about here--but the Covid pandemic may have been the most important factor.

For more information about public school enrollment go to Data-Z.org, where you can compare states going back to 1999.  You can also explore our many demographic, economic and financlal data series for all 50 states.  READ MORE

What state consumes the most turkey per person on Thanksgiving?  Why, California, of course--the largest state in the Union.  Besides turkeys consumed, California also has the most federal taxpayers, according to the IRS.  However, in 2023 California lost the most tax filers, 1,277,731 to be precise.  No other state lost tax filers.

And where did those tax filers go?  Well, maybe they wll be eating turkey in Florida and Texas, which both saw an increase of over one million tax filers.  No other states came even close to gaining that many taxpayers. So is California a turkey state in more ways than one?  READ MORE

Truth in Accounting's most recent Financial State of the States, which came out on October 3, 2024, shows that only three out of the seven swing states had a Taxpayer Surplus^TM according to their ACFR data for 2023.  All the swing states had a Taxpayer Burden^TM  between 2014 and 2020.  The states that switched from having a burden to having a surplus were Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.  The other four swing states--Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania--maintained their burden status at least through 2022.  Two of those states, Arizona and Nevada, did not release their financial statements in time to be included in our report.  

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According to the Mercatus Center, the state of New York came in second highest in terms of state regulations. The Center quantifies the number of regulations because their "research indicates that regulatory accumulation worsens economic conditions, inadvertently increasing poverty rates, destroying jobs, and raising prices. The path to reversing these trends is clear: Improve regulations by reducing their number. Our State RegData project has produced "snapshots" of state regulations that can help policymakers engage in that process."

In addition, New York ranks highest in terms of lawyers per 10,000 residents according to the American Bar Association and TIA calculations.  It has 95.72 lawyers per 10,000 residents, while Massachusetts, the next highest state, has 61.06 lawyers per 10,000 residents.  Is this a coincidence, a correlation, or a cause?  You decide and check the numbers for your state at Data.Z.org.

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Timeliness of an annual report is the number of days between a city or state's fiscal year-end and the date it publishes its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). For the publishing date, TIA uses the date on the letter of transmittal, which is typically found near the beginning of the ACFR.

It is crucial for citizens to have their government’s financial information in a timely manner. Due to the tardiness of Arizona, California, Iowa, Oklahoma and Nevada in releasing their financial reports, we were unable to include the newest data in our Financial State of the States 2023 report which was published in October 2023.  In mid July 2024 we were finally able to update our data on Data-z.org to include the 2022 data from those five delinquent states. 

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Last week we showed you the top five losers in the migration of adjusted gross income for 2022 (the latest year available).  Those five states lost a total of over $57 billion dollars.  And where did that money go?  Well, overwhelmingly to Florida which saw an influx of over $36 billion. The other four states (Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina) combined received over $24 billion in increased income from taxpayers moving to those states. Large numbers of taxpayers have been moving to these states at least since 2012.  

To learn more about where your state ranks in net migration of AGI, taxpayers, and exemptions, go to Data-Z.org.    READ MORE