Illinois ranks dead last in funding pensions

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Illinois ranks 50th among the states in setting aside the tens of billions of dollars needed to pay its employee pensions.

That's the mortifying but believable word in a major new study that, if anything, understates just how big of a hole the state and its taxpayers are in when it comes to financing the cost of state employee retirement.

The report by the Pew Center on the States, a Washington research group, concludes that Illinois has set aside barely half -- 54%, to be exact -- of the amount it will need to pay benefits in its five worker pension funds, leaving an unfunded liability of $54.4 billion.

Here's the Pew report. You might say then state Senator Barack Obama didn't do anything for changing Illinois' pension nightmare.