While 99% of full-time public sector employees have access to an employment-based retirement plan, budgetary pressures, evolving workforce demographics, and long-term finance and benefit trends have led many states and local governments to implement various reforms. A new joint report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government and TIAA-CREF gathers insights and actions from state and local officials and highlights issues associated with such reforms.
For example, pension plans can no longer be designed based on the premise that an employee will work for one employer his or her entire life. Also, pension reformers should look at individual defined benefit and defined contribution plan elements and consider hybrid arrangements of both plan designs that leverage complementary characteristics of each.
