Public pensions are underfunded.

Okay. I know, I know. We’ve all seen this headline before. Ad nauseum. To add to that, nothing seems to improve. Another year goes by and state employee pensions are still underfunded. The numbers don’t lie: at the close of 2016, the cumulative pension funding deficit stood at $1.4 trillion—the 15thannual increase in pension debt since 2000. It’s not like the states aren’t trying to make up the shortfalls. In fact, contributions to pensions from state taxpayers doubled since 2000. Apparently, to no avail. It’s like listening to an endless repeating loop of hold music. Your ears stop listening after a while.

The State of the State: Connecticut

Well, not everyone’s ears. State policy makers living with the implications of these deficits (often not of their own making) are listening carefully to proposed solutions. One state that is paying particularly close attention is Connecticut.

Connecticut faces some considerable challenges. By the close of 2017, job growth recovered only 82.3% of the jobs lost in the Great Recession of 2008. Connecticut faces population outmigration, the loss of at least one major corporate employer (General Electric), and the near bankruptcy of Hartford, the state’s capital. But the greatest long-term structural risk to the state’s financial stability is the growing pension funding gap.

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