Illinois Pension Debt Rises Again as Stock Rout Takes Toll (1)

Illinois’s debt to its employee retirement funds rose as the pensions were hammered by investment losses, erasing some of the bull-market gains that briefly chipped away at the state’s obligations.

The unfunded pension liability across Illinois’s five retirement systems rose 7.5% to $139.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June, based on the market value of their assets, according to a report from the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability on Thursday.

The increase is a shift from 2021, when the state’s debt to the pensions dropped as stock prices were rallying toward record highs. That had ...