State and local contributions to public pension funds, 2000-2019
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Public pensions provide monetary benefits to public workers when they retire. Many state and local government workers have access to defined benefit pension plans, which make retirement payments tied to each worker’s years of service and average salary during his or her time as a government employee. Public employee pension plans are funded through a combination of employee contributions and allocations from the state and local governments that sponsor the pension funds.
According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 296 state-administered funds and 5,037 locally administered defined benefit public pension systems in fiscal year 2019.[1] Although locally administered pension funds are far more numerous, the focus of this page on state pension funds is due to the scale of state funds compared to local funds: nearly nine out of ten pension plan members belong to state pension plans, state pension funds hold 82 percent of the total public pension cash and investments, and 86 percent of the people receiving government pension benefits receive them from state government pension funds.
Adjusted for inflation, the amount of contributions from state and local governments to state-administered pension funds increased between fiscal years 2000 and 2019. The $40.1 billion contributed in fiscal year 2000 is worth $59.5 billion in 2019 dollars, which is less than half of the $130.2 billion that state and local governments contributed to state pension funds in 2019.
The $130.2 billion state and local governments contributed in fiscal year 2019 comprised about 72% of the total pension contributions in that fiscal year. The remaining 28% came from employee contributions.[1] A report in 2019 by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators found that contributions by state and local governments to pension trust funds made up less than 5 percent of all state and local government spending.[2]
The table below shows the monetary contributions by both local governments and state governments to state-administered pension funds between fiscal years 2000-2019.
| State and local government contributions to state pension funds, FY 2000-2019 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Contributions | Contributions (constant 2019 dollars) |
| 2000 | $40,096,414 | $59,539,216 |
| 2001 | $38,789,191 | $56,004,495 |
| 2002 | $39,472,958 | $56,104,699 |
| 2003 | $46,139,449 | $64,118,789 |
| 2004 | $60,923,127 | $82,467,144 |
| 2005 | $60,495,503 | $79,204,814 |
| 2006 | $64,365,252 | $81,637,872 |
| 2007 | $73,666,226 | $90,847,267 |
| 2008 | $82,263,888 | $97,698,946 |
| 2009 | $84,749,072 | $101,009,792 |
| 2010 | $86,361,370 | $101,270,326 |
| 2011 | $96,038,186 | $109,171,661 |
| 2012 | $74,901,173 | $83,417,816 |
| 2013 | $81,718,108 | $89,696,039 |
| 2014 | $91,290,915 | $98,603,875 |
| 2015 | $100,606,333 | $108,536,684 |
| 2016 | $106,507,365 | $113,471,412 |
| 2017 | $112,771,161 | $117,638,650 |
| 2018 | $126,751,905 | $129,073,923 |
| 2019 | $130,223,604 | $130,223,604 |
State pension contributions by state, 2000-2019
The spreadsheet below details the contributions to state pension funds from state and local governments between 2000 and 2019. It includes both current year (unadjusted) contributions and contributions in constant 2019 dollars. The individual state figures are in raw contributions.
See also
- Public pension health by state
- Public pensions
- State debt per capita (2000-2018)
- Federal outlays to state government (2000-2019)
- Proportion of state government general revenues from the federal government (2000-2020)
- State unfunded public pension liabilities, 2003-2018
External links
- United States Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Public Pensions Tables
- Consumer Price Index: Bureau of Labor Statistics for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
Footnotes
