The Wilderness is Less Lonely Than Expected

I should have expected it.  As righteous indignation led me away from silent, resentful thoughts and towards research and education, I discovered that my one-man crusade was in fact following a well-trod path.  I had read the periodic news reports describing the same sets of figures, asking the same rhetorical questions, but I had not expected a deeply researched, well-written report on this very topic.  Rolling up my sleeves to start to dig into the history of Philadelphia’s municipal pension programs, I didn’t even have time to dig up a single obscure reference before I found a 2008 report from the estimable Pew Charitable Trusts on this very topic.  Philadelphia’s Quiet Crisis is absolutely top-notch research and analysis, and I’m amazed that it hasn’t been referred to in some of the more quotidian coverage I mentioned.  It seems like a reasonable road map to track our progress and see what’s gone right, what’s gone wrong, and what hasn’t gone at all over the past decade.  I will also continue attempting to dig up some of the history around this problem as we go.