Most people -- the ones who are honest, that is -- realize how corrupt Chicago and Illinois are, but most don't understand just how deep the political corruption goes.

The Chicago Sun-Times has been running a series on the pension system for retired government workers in Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois that helps to illustrate just how deeply the corruption travels down through the bureaucratic layers from the top.

A couple of facts that jump out are these: About 3.8% of all retired government workers (from the City of Chicago, the County of Cook, and the State of Illinois) make more money in retirement than they ever did on the job; and about 3.1% of these retirees receive pensions from two different government entities -- sometimes collecting huge pensions while they are still employed at another government job.

Update: Another fact that boggles the imagination is how some retired city workers' pensions are based on their union salaries, not their government pay.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Tim Novak, Art Golab, and Chris Fusco report: (emphasis added)

Want to retire with a fat pension? Get a government job in Illinois.

Nearly 4,000 retired government workers have pensions that pay them at least $100,000 a year. They include politicians, judges, doctors and school administrators, as well as top cops, firefighters and park officials.

More than half have collected more than $1 million each since they retired. A few have topped $2 million. And five have gotten more than $3 million each, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation found.

And these numbers are soaring faster than taxpayers can afford.

Consider:

3,958 retirees have pensions paying $100,000 or more a year.

2,255 of those retirees have each collected more than $1 million in pension benefits. They include two doctors who have each gotten more than $3 million over the last 10 years.

14,280 retirees have pensions that pay them more than their final salaries. That's largely because all government pensions in Illinois automatically increase 3 percent every year.

11,521 retirees get checks from two or more government pension plans.

23 widows each get more than $100,000 a year, every year, in survivor benefits.

16 judges' widows have each gotten more than $1 million since their husbands died.

It's a frightening picture. It costs more than $800 million a month for state and local governments to cover their pension burden, according to a first-of-its-kind Sun-Times analysis of data obtained from the 17 largest retirement plans for government workers in Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois. Those plans cover 374,041 retired government workers or their survivors.

It is a complete joke.