For the 100 largest public-employee pension systems in the country, assets (cash and investments) totaled $3,505.5 billion in the first quarter of 2017, increasing by 3.2 percent from the 2016 fourth quarter level of $3,395.9 billion. Compared to the same quarter in 2016, assets for these major public pension systems increased 7.4 percent from $3,262.5 billion. This continues the growth trend that originated in the third quarter of 2015. The asset categories highlighted in this summary are the major asset categories (equities, debt  instruments, and cash equivalents) and do not reflect all of the categories published for the Quarterly Survey of Public Pensions. Please see the complete data sets on the Web site at <www.census.gov/programs-surveys/qspp.html> or Figure 1 for further detail.