“Study: States must fill $1 trillion pension gap,” reports The Associated Press. To fully redeem retirement and health care obligations made to state and local employees, The Pew Center on the States puts each U.S. taxpayer liable for $8,800 in unfunded liabilities.

To be sure, people living in states that have overpromsed retirees will be stuck with the bill. Which may be good news (I suppose) for North Carolinians, in that the Pew survey considers our state a “solid performer.” Don’t get complacent, however. That designation covers only the pension plan for state retirees and not its health insurance program (which has an unfunded liability of nearly $30 billion, and is making only about a fourth of the payments necessary to retire those mounting debts).

Making JLF fiscal analyst Joe Coletti’s suggestion that the state move to a defined-contribution plan for state workers’ pensions and medical plans sound smarter all the time.