Chicago City Wire

Without members and taxpayers subsidizing its revenue, the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund would have lost $656,489,618 in 2018, according to a Chicago City Wire analysis of the latest data reported to the Illinois Department of Insurance Pension Division.

The fund has $2,147,483,647 in total assets. If the fund’s annual losses stay the same, it would run out of money in 19 years without these subsidies.

The fund earned $936,983,275 in investment income and other revenue in 2018. At the same time, it paid out $1,593,472,893 in expenses, according to the 2019 biennial report detailing the health of each of the state’s pension funds and retirement systems. The difference between the two shows the fund’s annual loss without subsidies.

Taxpayers added $784,402,000 to the fund’s revenue last year – an amount that has increased from $650,416,141 five years ago. Members contributed an additional $183,679,205 – $4,166,860 less than five years ago.

In all, subsidies amounted to $968,081,205 in 2018.

Year	Total non-subsidy revenue	Total expenses	Outcome without subsidies
2018	$936,983,275	$1,593,472,893	-$656,489,618
2017	$1,269,336,063	$1,523,838,233	-$254,502,170
2016	$9,237,709	$1,499,560,308	-$1,490,322,599
2015	$420,693,872	$1,460,598,749	-$1,039,904,877
2014	$1,734,213,073	$1,430,788,687	$303,424,386