This report finds that public pensions play an outsized role in the retirement security of every major demographic group in California, with the strongest impact on women and people of color. It is also a powerful tool for reducing wealth inequality. As private pension coverage declines, public pensions remain a critical bulwark of middle-class retirement security alongside Social Security, particularly for marginalized communities who have been historically shut out of other wealth-building opportunities.

This study analyzes the impact of defined benefit pensions, especially public pensions, on retirement income security and wealth distribution by race, gender, and educational attainment in the U.S. It serves as a companion report to Closing the Gap fact sheets, which are designed to inform the public about the social equity impact of pensions in each state and the District of Columbia.

This brief analyzes the impact of public sector employment and defined-benefit pensions on race and gender equity in retirement income security in Marin County and California. Public pensions play an outsized role in the retirement security of every racial group, particularly in Black and Latino communities, and pension income provides a critical buffer against economic hardship in old age for all groups, especially women, Black and Latino Californians, and seniors without college degrees.

This brief examines pension benefits for public servants in Sonoma County in terms of their role in employee compensation, the evolving financial status of pension systems, the impact of pension reform on costs, and how different pension systems in the county and surrounding Bay Area region stack up against each other in terms of protection from inflation during retirement.

This brief is intended to help policymakers and the public better understand the financial standing of Marin County’s public pension systems, the role of legacy liabilities vs. ongoing benefit accrual in employer pension costs, and the current trajectory of these costs.

This brief examines the economic value of DB pensions—which provide secure monthly retirement income based on salary and years of service—for public employees, employers, and residents in Marin County.

As teachers across the country mobilize for education funding and fair pay, pensions are high on their list of priorities. What they know from experience, and research confirms, is that pensions are a win-win for teachers and schools, delivering superior retirement security and retaining teachers for decades. Conversely, abandoning pensions in favor of 401(k) or cash balance plans would come at great cost to teacher livelihoods and erode education quality.

In this study, we determine whether most teachers working in classrooms today can expect to work long enough in the same state to accrue higher benefits under their existing traditional pension, which provides monthly income based on age and service, than they would under a 401(k)-type savings plan of equal cost.

The results of our analysis indicate that the current Kentucky TRS pension is better matched to meet the retirement needs of the teaching workforce than a 401(k)-style plan.

Berkeley Blog post. Traditional pensions attract recruits to the profession and keep experienced teachers in the classroom. Doing away with pensions would increase teacher attrition and, worse, severely diminish their retirement security.

This blog post is the second in a two-part series explaining why recent studies claiming that teachers are better off with 401(k)s than pensions because of distributional issues and lower benefits for early leavers are misleading in their representation of the teaching workforce, and in how they compare retirement benefits.

This blog post is the first in a two-part series addressing key problems with studies advocating that teacher pensions be replaced with 401(k)s.

Early career turnover is a serious policy concern for public education — but is it the sole basis on which to evaluate the suitability of teacher retirement benefits? Absolutely not.…

Pensions form a significant part of public school teacher compensation, and provide the primary source of retirement security for teachers, many of whom are not included in Social Security.

Lower wage workers could be significantly disadvantaged if the Governor’s proposals for a hybrid pension and increased retirement age for new hires is applied without regard for wage level or occupational characteristics–through a severely downgraded pension benefit that fails to provide meaningful retirement security and a longer working career/shorter period of retirement compared to higher paid workers.

This report analyzes some of the social and economic costs related to two initiatives proposed by the City of Redding, which would make significant changes in key retirement benefits that the City currently provides to eligible employees.