Issue #378
Meet the hedge fund wiz kid who’s shrinking America’s pensions
When longtime private equity analyst Gina Raimondo won her bid to become treasurer of her home state in 2010, Rhode Island’s public pension system was in such disarray that federal regulators were sniffing around to make sure the state was reporting the funding levels accurately. Within two years, Raimondo (D) would push through the most significant cuts to public worker retirement benefits in the country and begin a campaign for the Governor’s mansion. The changes she masterminded in 2011 shrank the state’s pension funding gap by billions of dollars almost overnight, an achievement that would have taken years under the more moderate reforms other states have tried. But the rapid, aggressive approach came at a steep cost for the 66,000 men and women who teach, fight fires, and administer public programs in the state. Such sweeping changes would be hard for someone with years of political experience and connections. For a person holding her first-ever political office, they should have been even harder. But Raimondo didn’t do it alone. Her campaign to rewire the smallest state’s pension system got a huge, quiet boost from one of the largest states, thousands of miles away. Think Progress, 10-28-14.