The brief’s key findings are:
- Media stories suggest – especially since the bankruptcy of Detroit – that pensions are the major expense of American cities and could lead to widespread collapse.
- A comprehensive measure of the cost burden considers how much city taxpayers pay for the pensions of city and county general government workers and teachers.
- For a sample of 173 cities, these overall pension costs equal 7.9 percent of the total revenue base.
- The cost burden ranges from 12.3 percent for the highest cost quintile to 2.7 percent for the lowest cost quintile.
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Gauging the Burden of Public Pensions on Cities
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