Politics & Government

The Most Popular Destinations for Retirees of Illinois' 5 Pension Systems

You might be surprised, not all head for sunshine and palm trees.

After decades of working and saving for retirement, it’s common for retirees to pack up and head for more hospitable climates, especially when you live in Illinois where winter is twice as long as summer.

But since you rarely see information about where people from Illinois go to retire, we thought it would be interesting to find out which states have the most Illinois pensioners – mainly because this information is available to the public.

The data was obtained from each pension system through Freedom of Information Act requests and show the total number of retired public employees from Illinois who live and receive their pensions in other states, as well as how much was paid out in 2014.

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Some of the most popular states might surprise you, or at the very least, will contradict the notion that the Midwest weather is the main reason for moving out.

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Find out what's happening in Lake Zurichfor free with the latest updates from Patch.