10.17889/E112053
Rauh, Joshua
Novy-Marx, Robert
Replication data for: The Revenue Demands of Public Employee Pension Promises
ICPSR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
2014
10.1257/pol.6.1.193
10.1257/pol.6.1.193
V0
We calculate increases in contributions required to achieve full
funding of state and local pension systems in the United States
over 30 years. Without policy changes, contributions would have to
increase by 2.5 times, reaching 14.1 percent of the total own revenue
generated by state and local governments. This represents a tax
increase of $1,385 per household per year, around half of which
would go to pay down legacy liabilities while half would fund the cost
of new promises. We examine sensitivity to asset return assumptions,
wage correlations, the treatment of workers not currently in Social
Security, and endogenous geographical shifts in the tax base.