With additional plans reporting, total unfunded public pension liabilities in the U.S. grow to $1.61 trillion

In the nine months since we released Reason Foundation’s Annual Pension Solvency and Performance Report, we have made several important updates to the tool’s overall structure and added additional data from state and local public pension systems.

The tool has incorporated the data released by public pension systems since our original report was published in September 2024. Public pension systems that ended their fiscal years in June or July of 2024 have been updated. With these additions, the total unfunded public pension liability was $1.61 trillion, up from $1.59 trillion. Correspondingly, the median funded ratio across public pension plans decreased marginally from 76% to 75.8%.  

With the additional data, Reason Foundation’s stress-test projections for public pensions have worsened slightly. For example, under a major market shock, defined as a 10% loss, comparable to the Great Recession of 2007-2009, or the temporary stock market decline after President Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcement, unfunded liabilities are now projected to reach $2.29 trillion by 2025, up from our previous estimate of $2.16 trillion.  

Total public pension assets were $5.07 trillion, a slight increase from the $5.05 trillion previously reported.

The average assumed rate of return for public pension systems fell marginally from 6.89% to 6.87%, continuing the gradual shift toward more conservative investment expectations amid current economic conditions.

Overall, the updated data reinforces previously identified public pension trends. Insufficient public pension contributions, ongoing asset-liability mismatches, and improving, but still overly optimistic, investment return assumptions are ongoing issues for pension systems.

A significant addition to the tool in this mid-year update is the introduction of the state tracker. While previous versions provided individual state and plan data in separate sections, the state tracker now consolidates all relevant public pension data into a single, easily navigable area. This integration enables direct comparisons of pension funding ratios, investment returns, and liabilities across states within one unified interface.

Structural refinements to enhance clarity and ease of use have also been made. Navigation labels have been streamlined, with sections previously titled “Funding Health & Risk Assessment” simplified to “Funding Health” and “Asset Allocation & Projected Returns” shortened to “Asset Allocation.” These changes aim to improve the user experience, especially those accessing information on mobile devices or smaller screens. 

We hope these updates to the Annual Pension Solvency and Performance Report can help inform policy discussions and decisions around pension funding strategies at the local, state and national levels. 

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