For the 100 largest public-employee pension systems in the country, assets (cash and investments) totaled $3,785.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, increasing by 2.7 percent from the 2017 third quarter level of $3,684.7 billion. Compared to the same quarter in 2016, assets for these major public-pension systems increased 11.6 percent from $3,392.1 billion. The main driver of this gain is earnings on investments, which totaled $142.2 billion during the fourth quarter of 2017. Earnings on investments make up for the deficit between contributions and benefits paid out, and are a critical contributor to the sustainability of pension plans (see Figure 1). The summary highlights the major asset categories (equities, debt instruments, and cash equivalents) and does not reflect all of the categories published for the Quarterly Survey of Public Pensions.
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