NJ Pension Underfunding Substantially Understated

Douglas Love, a prominent member of the council that oversees investments by New Jersey's public pension funds, contends the state has been vastly underestimating how much money it should have to pay for retirement benefits promised to employees. Love says the state has been using inappropriate methods to calculate the value of the benefits promised. He says benefits already earned total $132 billion or more - substantially higher than the $91 billion officially reported. He says a more realistic calculation of the unfunded liability is $56 billion -more than three times as much as the $18 billion included in a recent state report.