The trend in retirement savings plans has been decidedly against the traditional pension plan in which an employer contributes money that funds the after-work years of employees. The major exception has been members of government employee unions.
Even they are not guaranteed a nest egg will be waiting. That's because many states facing fiscal problems decided to delay paying annual required contributions to pension funds.
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This has left some states with seriously unfunded pension plans and no good options to make catch-up payments.
Pew Charitable Trusts in July released a report looking at where all 50 state pension plans stand. The results can best be categorized as the good, the mediocre and the ugly. Pew ranked the states by the percentage of their pensions that were funded. Only two states were deemed fully funded, while several were at 60% or less.
Pew, which used data from 2013, the latest available, found nearly a trillion-dollar gulf between assets on hand in the pensions funds in all 50 states and the amount needed to fulfill promises made to employees. The number grew by $54 billion to $968 billion last year. And that doesn't count underfunding in local government pension systems.
The good news is that improving returns on investment since the recession ended have made the prospect of increasing pension funding seem at least possible. Still, state pension contributions totaled $74 billion in 2013, a shortfall of $18 billion from the ARC.
Pew notes that new reporting standards designed to give lawmakers more accurate information about pension funding may help close the gap.
Check out the Top 10 Best-Funded State Pensions of 2015:
10. (tie) Florida
Liability: $163.1 billion
Unfunded: $31.2 billion
% Funded: 81%
10. (tie) Iowa
Liability: $31.1 billion
Unfunded: $6 billion
% Funded: 81%
8. Idaho
Liability: $14.5 billion
Unfunded: $2.1 billion
% Funded: 85%
7. (tie) Washington
Liability: $73.4 billion
Unfunded: $8.7 billion
% Funded: 88%
7. (tie) Delaware
Liability: $9.2 billion
Unfunded: $1.1 billion
% Funded: 88%
5. New York
Liability: $175.1 billion
Unfunded: $19.8 billion
% Funded: 89%
4. Tennessee
Liability: $41.9 billion
Unfunded: $2.6 billion
% Funded: 94%
3. (tie) North Carolina
Liability: $88.4 billion
Unfunded: $3.6 billion
% Funded: 96%
2. (tie) Oregon
Liability: $62.5 billion
Unfunded: $2.6 billion
% Funded: 96%
(tie) South Dakota
Liability: $8.9 billion
Unfunded: $8,000
% Funded: 100%
(tie) Wisconsin
Liability: $85.3 billion
Unfunded: $53,000
% Funded: 100%
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