By Geoff Mulvihill
Source: Associated Press
Pension systems for state government workers across the U.S. are in their best shape since the Great Recession began more than a dozen years ago, according to a study released Tuesday.
The Pew Charitable Trust report credits a booming stock market over the past year as well as states’ longer-term steps, which include boosting taxpayer contributions to public pension funds and reducing promised retirement benefits, particularly to newly hired workers.
“The better decisions, the fiscal discipline, is something that states can keep doing next year and the year after,” said Pew’s David Draine, one of the report’s authors. “You can’t hope for once-in-a generation returns to occur again.”