Pension Data & Research
Original research, reports, and data tools to help workers, policymakers, and administrators understand public retirement systems.
Our Approach to Research
Equable produces rigorous, nonpartisan research shaped by evidence — never ideology. We’re committed to honest findings because the people who depend on public retirement systems deserve nothing less.
Our Approach to Data
Data is at the core of our work. We collect comprehensive data from hundreds of retirement systems to surface the practices and policies producing better outcomes. All of it is publicly available and freely accessible — because transparency is a prerequisite for accountability.
Featured Tool
The Financial Resilience Report
The financial resilience report is an interactive tool that provides a custom overview of pension fund fiscal health on the state, system, and plan levels based on 7 key metrics.
Featured Data Sets
Explore our most widely used data on public retirement systems
Download data for 230 state defined benefit retirement plans – including pension plans, guaranteed return plans, and hybrid plans.
- Includes data for 20+ years spanning 180 different retirement systems.
- Features variables noting plans’ funded status, investments, contributions, & more.
- These data include both state administered and municipally administered plans.
- For subsets of these data, please see “Special Datasets: Finance Datasets” below.
*Note: Many retirement plans have multiple classes or tiers of benefits, which is why the universe of Benefit Provisions looks larger than the Finance data.
Last updated: August 2024
Download data for 706 active retirement plans and classes of benefits, including pension plans, defined contribution plans, guaranteed return plans, and hybrid plans.
- Also includes topline information about several hundred legacy retirement plans and classes of benefits that are not open to new members, but still have active participants or beneficiaries.
- These data also include benefit provisions for state administered plans and municipally administered plans.
- For subsets of these data, please see “Special Datasets: Benefits Datasets” below.
*Note: Benefit data include all active classes or tiers of benefits and all legacy tiers that still have substantial members (either active or retired) or beneficiaries for which data are available.
Last updated: August 2024
Download data outlining the causes of unfunded liabilities for 145 state retirement plans over the past 20+ years.
- Data include detailed breakdowns of actuarial gain/loss data as reported by the plans to explain more than $1.3 trillion in unfunded liabilities through 2020.
- These data are currently limited to state-administered retirement systems.
*Note: Actuarial gain/loss data are limited in their reporting, which is why there are fewer plans covered here than in the Equable Finance Database.
Last updated: August 2024
Download the raw data from the sixth edition of State of Pensions.
The Public Retirement Research Database
Equable Institute’s Public Retirement Research Database is an open-source tool designed to provide access to the most up-to-date data on U.S. public retirement systems.
This database includes four core datasets and an ever-growing catalogue of special datasets.
State of Pensions
State of Pensions is Equable Institute’s annual report on the status of statewide public pension systems, put into a historic context. It analyzes trends in public pension funding, investments, contributions, cash flows, and benefits for the largest statewide and municipal retirement systems.
Our Latest Data Deep Dives
In-depth analysis of the numbers shaping public retirement systems.
