Annual Survey of Public Pensions: State Data

About the Survey

SPONSOR
U.S. Census Bureau as authorized by Title 13, U.S. Code, Section 161.

PURPOSE
The Annual Survey of Public Pensions: State-Administered Defined Benefit Data provides revenues, expenditures, financial assets, membership, and liabilities information for defined benefit public pension systems. These systems are an important component of the nation's government sector.

CONTENT
This survey covers only those retirement systems that meet two criteria: (1) they are sponsored by a recognized unit of government as defined by the Census Bureau; and (2) their membership must be comprised of public employees compensated with public funds.

FREQUENCY
Data have been collected annually since 1957. A census is conducted every five years (years ending in '2' and '7').

PRODUCTS
A viewable national summary table and five individual state tables that present revenues, expenditures, cash and investments, membership, and liabilities data for state retirement systems by state. There are also downloadable tables that include an individual unit file.

HOW THE DATA ARE USED
The U.S. Congress, federal agencies, state and local governments, educational and research organizations, and the general public use these results.

Additional information on our methodology - the population of interest, data collection, data processing, and data quality, are available at How the Data are Collected