The following article appears as a chapter in Corporate Retirement Security (Blackwell Publishing, October 2007), edited by Robert Kolb.
Public pension fund assets over recent decades have grown far faster proportionately than the assets of other significant investor categories. State and local government pension funds collectively hold almost $2 trillion in assets in approximately 2,600 public pension funds. Another $897 billion is held in federal retirement accounts. The vast majority of these funds are defined-benefit plans whose main goal is to provide a specific level of retirement benefits to approximately 20 million members, which include general government employees, teachers, police, and firefighters, and retirees. These funds have fulfilled a very important role by providing for the retirement security of public employees.
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Jon Entine is an adjunct fellow at AEI.
