Chicago in the national news: 10/12

According to Bloomberg, Chicago has one of the worst pensions in the country and can feasibly only cover these benefits through 2020 before running out of money. Forbes’ Full Disclosure blog says the average pension tab for Chicagoans is $42,000 per household. The study, written by economists at Northwestern University and The University of Rochester, includes Philadelphia and Boston as two other cities that have equally dismal pensions. Professor Rauh, one of the researchers on the paper says these findings threaten the city’s economic viability but that, “What is yet to be seen is how this burden will be distributed between state and local governments, and whether the federal government will be called upon for bailouts. If these issues are left unresolved, fiscal crises on the state and local levels may translate into significant losses for municipal bondholders.” A recently released study- which has gotten picked up by the Orlando Sentinel- alleges that close to a whopping 60 percent of Chicago’s Roman Catholic parishes have employed priests accused of sexually abusing a child. The five-year study was compiled by several victim advocate groups who examined the assignment of publicly accused Catholic priests from 1917 through 2009. Although the data’s validity is being challenged, The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein makes the point that, “The church has made enormous changes and progress in the past decade in dealing with the subject of clergy sex abuse, but the lack of full public accountability won’t likely be going away any time soon.” And in lighter news, Esquire Magazine’s November issue contains their annual top 20 restaurants list.‚ This year Chicago’s Longman & Eagle and Epic made the cut. New York Magazine’s Grub Street has the full list of‚ winners.