States Have an Aggregate of $4.1 Trillion in Unfunded Pension Liabilities

State Budget Solutions (SBS) has released a comprehensive review of state-level public employee pension plans in all 50 states and their funding levels.  Based on annual financial reports and actuarial valuations, the SBS examined “over 250 state-level defined benefit pension plans” with a combined $2.6 trillion in assets and evaluated their funding level based on a “fair-market valuation.” SBS determined that state-level public pension plans have a $4.1 trillion unfunded liability, nearly four times as large as the $1 trillion that pension systems officially report [..]

The rising costs to taxpayers and the smoke-and-mirrors accounting practices that obscure the realities that pension systems are operating with threaten the long-term stability of government and, by extension, pensions. Taxpayers are being mislead as to the true cost of the tab they’ll be expected to pickup, and public employees are being sold retirement schemes that may not be around for them when it is there time to retire. Or even worse, governments and related pension systems may just go bankrupt and hurt everyone involved.