Certain mortality projections would increase life expectancy by 2.3 years and reduce the funded ratio of the nation’s public pension plans to 67 percent.

That’s according to a just-out brief from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, “How Will Longer Lifespans Affect State and Local Pension Funding?” which concludes that, while the impact of longer lives is not exactly a positive for funds, there’s no imminent threat to pension funding levels.

It explores what public plan liabilities and funded ratios would look like under two alternative scenarios:

1. If public plans were required to use the new mortality tables designed for private sector plans; and

2. if public plans were required to go one step further and fully incorporate expected future mortality improvements.

The brief's key findings include:

Using the private-sector standard, public plans underestimate life expectancy by only 0.5 years, reducing the 2013 funded status of state and local plans from 73 percent to 72 percent.
Incorporating future mortality improvements would increase life expectancy by 2.3 years and reduce the funded ratio of public plans from 73 percent to 67 percent.

Plans’ liabilities are affected, of course, by the longevity of their members, and the brief explores the degree to which liabilities are affected, calculating that “state and local pension plans would see their liabilities increase by 3.5 percent for each additional year of life expectancy.”

Also read: New accounting rules reveal pension shortfalls

When the differences among longevity tables are factored in, it becomes clear that some plans, because of the way they calculate life expectancy, will be more greatly affected by a change from one table to another, while other plans will not see such drastic effects.

The public sector, the brief said, is going to great efforts to make sure its life expectancy assumptions are up to date. Reassuringly, the brief said, “The question underlying this analysis is whether outdated mortality assumptions are a serious problem among state and local plans. The answer appears to be ‘no.’”

Instant Insights /

Public pensions face new challenges as we live longer

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