After Moody's cut our credit rating this week, people are starting to compare Chicago with Detroit:
here are five reasons, now more than ever, that suggest Chicago is akin to Detroit—or, by some measures, even worse. Or, as Illinois Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner put it last month: “Chicago is in deep, deep yogurt.”
BIG, SCARY NUMBERS: Chicago's unfunded liability from four pension funds is $20 billion and growing, hitting every city resident with an obligation of about $7,400. Detroit's, whose population of about 689,000 is roughly a quarter of Chicago's, had a retirement funding gap of $3.5 billion, meaning each resident was liable for $5,100. A January 2014 report from Morningstar Municipal Credit Research showed that among the 25 largest cities and Puerto Rico, Chicago had the highest per-capita pension liability.
Yes, it's bad, but wow. Has the author ever been to Detroit?
But yeah, it's pretty bad.