Retirement plans can create strong financial incentives that have important labor market implications, and many states have adopted alternative plan designs that significantly change these incentives. The authors use longitudinal data to investigate the impact of Washington State's 1996 introduction of a hybrid retirement plan on late-career…

The COVID-related financial market decline and economic recession have raised new concerns regarding the financial sustainability of retirement plans for state and local government employees, the largest group of whom is public school teachers. Using data from the Public Plans Database and the National Income and Product Accounts, I analyze…

Over the last two decades, twenty-two states have moved away from traditional defined benefit (DB) pension systems and toward pension plan structures like the defined contribution (DC) plans now prevalent in the private sector. Others are considering such a reform as it is seen as a means of limiting future pension funding risk. It is important to…

In most U.S. states retirement benefits constitute an important component of compensation for public school teachers, and the structure of teacher retirement systems has been the subject of a prominent public policy debate. The prevalence of underfunded state pension systems has resulted in discussion about the prudence of moving from traditional…

The financial problems afflicting the Illinois teacher pension plan have grabbed headlines. An equally important problem, though underappreciated, is that relatively few teachers benefit much from the plan. This report evaluates the pension benefits provided to Illinois public school teachers. The researchers project annual and lifetime pension…

Although benefits can be a sizable part of an educator's total compensation, there has been little scholarly inquiry into the state pension plans for educators. Despite the fact that all defined benefit plans rely on the same basic formula for calculating annual pensions, they vary across states in the multiplier used, the method for calculating…

This article examines the pattern of incentives for work versus retirement in six state teacher pension systems. We do this by examining the annual accrual of pension wealth from an additional year of work over a teacher's career. Accrual of wealth is highly nonlinear and heavily loaded at arbitrary years that would normally be considered…

This report presents basic data collected from 68 retirement systems on major legal provisions of state and local retirement systems to which teachers belong. The overview contains information on: (1) membership in state and local systems; (2) creditable service eligibility from prior service, military service, in-state nonteaching service, and…

The extent, causes, and possible consequences of underfunded teacher pensions are examined. The analysis is divided into two separate studies. Essay I, "Appraising the Funding Status of Teacher Pensions: An Econometric Approach," examines the funding status of teacher pension plans for the 50 states and for selected localities for the…

Empirical evidence of tax shelter usage is sparse. These data add weight to earlier concerns about whether tax incentives to save for retirement benefit upper-income groups more than middle- and lower-income groups and present the importance of different sources of income in providing retirement funds for this group. (Author/RC)

While corporations have been offering early retirement to their employees for a number of years, universities and colleges have only recently used such programs to create change. This survey was conducted to determine how professors are faring as relative newcomers to early retirement programs. Questionnaires were mailed to 159 colleges and…

The Committee on Retirement of the American Association of University Professors initiated its first retirement policies survey in 2000 to address a lack of reliable and systematically collected information on retirement policies and practices across U.S. institutions of higher education. At the end of the 1990s, there was a sense that…

This report presents results of a survey of pension plans offered by Ontario universities to their employees. A summary provides overall information by: type of plan; eligibility; member contributions; university contributions; benefits; indexing; and standard options for benefit payment on early retirement, termination, or death. An explanation…

Current methods of funding teachers' retirement systems, which base pensions on final salaries, are inequitable because they are not related to school districts' ability to pay and because they require some teachers to subsidize others. A five-state survey shows it is common for pensions to be funded by school districts and teachers, sometimes…

Long-term disability income coverage is seen as the most rapidly growing staff benefit in recent years. A Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association's survey of existing long-term disability plans, which provide adequate income replacement, is discussed. (MLW)