Industry News

The Wisconsin Legislative Council published its report, 2023-24 Comparative Study of Major Public Employee Retirement Systems. The survey covers retirement benefits for general employees and teachers in 87 large public retirement systems. The study provides information regarding retirement benefits, employer and employee contributions, actuarial methods and assumptions, plan funding, and other relevant topics. 

The systems in the survey cover 11.2 million active employees and 9.3 million retirees, for a total of 20.5 million participants. From 2020-21 to 2023-24, the number of active participants increased by less than 0.02%, while the number of retirees and beneficiaries increased 5.8%, resulting in the ratio of active to retiree members declining from 1.38 in 2020-21 to 1.29 in 2023-24. 

Overall, plan funding has improved over the last few years with 3% of plans being more than 100% funded in the 2023-24 report. In addition, 37% of plans were 80-100% funded, 44% were 60-79% funded and 16% were less than 60% funded.

Of the plans studied, 75% of plans had interest rate assumptions ranging from 5%-7% in 2023-24 while 25% had interest rate assumptions of over 7%-8%. 

The study is available here.