Industry News

Recently, the MissionSquare Research Institute released its survey report, How to Help Retirement Plan Participants Make Optimal Financial Decisions. The research examined the differences between public sector and private sector employees’ retirement and financial decision-making. Some factors analyzed include how employees: 1) seek financial advice; 2) make investment decisions; 3) adopt technology; and 4) plan for retirement income.

The primary data set was based on a national retirement and financial wellness survey conducted by the Institute and Greenwald Research in December 2025. The survey included over 1,000 full-time state and local governmental employees and over 1,000 full-time private sector employees. The survey categorized public sector and private sector employees based on whether they participated in defined benefit (DB) plans only, defined contribution (DC) plans only, or both DB and DC plans.

According to the report, “Among workers who have a DB plan, public sector participants expect pensions to cover a larger share of retirement expenses and report higher expected monthly pension benefits than private sector participants. This is an important contextual difference. A worker who expects a DB pension to provide a meaningful share of retirement income may rationally approach DC saving, investment risk, and annuitization differently from a worker who expects to rely mostly on accumulated DC assets.”

The report is available here.