Public employee pensions account for about 3% of government spending
Source: New York State Teachers’ Retirement System
According to a February 2012 report by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA), “on the average, pension costs for state and municipal governments are just shy of 3% of total spending.”
The NASRA report noted that “State and local government pension benefits are paid not from general operating revenues, but from trust funds to which public retirees and their employers contributed while they were working. …On average, public pension programs remain a small part of state and local government spending.”
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