US public pension statistics
Key findings from PlainPension's rebuild of the Public Plans Database. Counts and ratios are live from FY2023 plan cards; they describe reported actuarial valuations, not investment advice or benefit guarantees.
- Plans with ratio
- 192
- Average funded ratio
- 75.5%
- Below 80%
- 121
- State codes
- 51
Public Plans Database · FY2023
192 US public plans report a funded ratio on FY2023 plan cards; the simple average is 75.5% and 121 sit below 80%. Colorado sums the largest state-level unfunded liabilities at $6.1B. Reported actuarial figures, not benefit forecasts.
- 192
- plans with ratio
- 75.5%
- average funded
- 121
- below 80%
- $1939B
- sum unfunded
According to the Public Plans Database (Boston College CRR / NASRA). See methodology for extract dating and comparability limits.
According to the Public Plans Database compiled by the Boston College Center for Retirement Research and NASRA, 192 of 197 tracked plans report an actuarial funded ratio on FY2023 plan cards. PlainPension computes each finding below from that release (database copy loaded July 2026). Read the methodology for assumption and year-matching rules.
Key findings
Standalone, citable statements from this Public Plans Database rebuild. Reuse with attribution to PlainPension.
- 192 public pension plans in this rebuild report an actuarial funded ratio on FY2023 plan cards (197 plans tracked; 5 omit a ratio and are excluded from ratio aggregates). Each ratio uses that plan's own actuarial assumptions.
- 75.5% is the simple average funded ratio across those 192 reported plans on FY2023 plan cards. It is a cross-plan descriptive mean, not a benefit-security forecast or a weighted national liability measure.
- 121 of 192 plans report a funded ratio below 80% on FY2023 plan cards (27 below 60%). Eighty percent is a common screening band in public-plan reporting; it is not a universal pass-fail line because discount rates and funding policies differ.
- 11 plans carry health grade F in this snapshot (9 report 100% or more on funded ratio). Grades compress funded ratio, ARC coverage, and contribution history into one label. Read the plan page before treating a grade as the whole story.
- 21.8% Louisiana Teachers Retirement System (LA) reports the lowest actuarial funded ratio in this extract at 21.8%; Sioux Falls Fire (SD) is second at 22.8%. Lowest-first ordering is on the worst-funded ranking page.
- $210B New York State and Local Retirement Systems reports the largest unfunded actuarial liability in this extract ($210B on FY2023 plan cards); California Public Employees Retirement System is second at $188B. Liability dollars are reported actuarial gaps, not near-term cash calls.
- $6.1B Colorado aggregates the largest sum of plan-level unfunded liabilities among 51 state codes in this table ($6.1B across 2 tracked plans); Delaware is second at $1.3B. State totals sum constituent plans; they are not a household tax or benefit estimate.
- 79.0% Municipal plans average 79.0% funded across 25 plans with a reported ratio; Teachers averages 76.3% across 33 plans. Category averages mix plans with different sponsors and assumptions. Compare plan pages for like-for-like reads.
Funded-ratio distribution
Band counts for the 192 plans with a non-null funded ratio on FY2023 plan cards. Bands match the ranges used on the funded-ratio guide.
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Average funded ratio by plan type
Simple averages within each plan_type row; counts differ by category.
Source: Public Plans Database (Boston College Center for Retirement Research / NASRA) PlainPension plan-card aggregates · 2023 Funded ratios and liabilities are FY2023 plan-card valuations. History charts on plan pages may extend to FY2024. Do not mix years without reading each plan page.
How to read these numbers
Funded ratios are reported actuarial assets divided by reported actuarial liabilities under each plan's own assumptions. Unfunded-liability dollars are the reported gap, not a near-term benefit cut forecast. State sums aggregate tracked plans in that state code. Download the plan-level CSV or the funding-change JSON, which carries each plan's one-year move split into the part its assets account for and the part its accrued liability accounts for, a derivation the source publishes the inputs for but not the result. Or open rankings, state pages, and the funded-ratio guide for drill-downs.
Every figure on PlainPension is rendered directly from the Public Plans Database (Boston College Center for Retirement Research), no number is typed in by an editor. Key Findings aggregate getPortfolioStats, getFundedRatioDistribution, getWorstFundedPlans, getLargestLiabilityPlans, states, and getFundedRatioByPlanType from the PlainPension SQLite rebuild of the Public Plans Database. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the typed corrections pathway, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of FY2023 plan cards · database loaded July 2026.