Next School Crisis for Chicago: Pension Fund Is Running Dry

One of the most vexing problems for Chicago and its teachers went virtually unmentioned during the strike: The pension fund is about to hit a wall. The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund has about $10 billion in assets, but is paying out more than $1 billion in benefits a year — much more than it has been taking in. That has forced it to sell investments, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to pay retired teachers. Experts say the fund could collapse within a few years unless something is done.

“There’s a huge crisis,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan research organization in Chicago that works on fiscal issues. “The problem does not get easier by waiting. The problem gets bigger, and starts to become an insurmountable obstacle.”

Teachers in Chicago, as in many cities, do not earn Social Security credit for their years in the classroom. Read more >>

Health insurers hike rates, ignore government

Consumer advocates are questioning the fairness of requiring Americans to buy health coverage under the Affordable Care Act if the government can’t control the rates insurance companies charge.

To keep prices in check, the health reform law instituted a procedure known as rate review, by which state insurance departments evaluate carriers’ proposed premium hikes of 10% or more to determine whether they are justified. But even when they deem the proposed increases excessive or unreasonable, insurance commissioners can’t always stop companies from putting them into effect.

While the reviews spared consumers $1 billion in rate hikes, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday, insurance commissioners and advocates say they would have saved consumers much more if government authorities in all 50 states could prevent insurers from going ahead with unjustified increases. Read more >>

Gerald Celente: America Is A Full Blown Police State!

Gerald Celente discusses US Imperial wars, Obama, NDAA, and the US police state. 

Another reason not to hire - rising unemployment taxes

Companies have yet another reason not to boost hiring: rising unemployment taxes.

Employers around the nation are getting socked with higher state unemployment tax bills as states are forced to shell out more than $1 billion in interest payments this month. More than 30 states have had to borrow billions from a federal fund to cover unemployment benefits for their jobless residents in recent years.

And this is only the first of two tax spikes employers are contending with, on both the state and federal level. Come January, companies in 24 states could have to shell out between $21 and $63 more per employee in federal unemployment taxes.

These hikes are the latest in a series of unemployment tax increases as states look to replenish their unemployment trust funds devastated by the Great Recession.

Last year, employers paid 27.8% more in state jobless taxes, said Doug Holmes, president, UWC Strategic Services on Unemployment & Workers' Compensation, a business trade association.

"Unemployment taxes, which were a relatively low bottom-line cost in 2008, are now becoming a significant cost," Holmes said. "It discourages companies from electing to hire new employees." More...