Educators Need Financial Security in Retirement

Pension Education Toolkit Fact Sheets

The Pension Education Toolkit fact sheets present clear and concise information and message points on a variety of public pension topics for retired educators and the public. These resource materials highlight the importance of advocating for the earned benefits provided by defined benefit pension plans and their future solvency in a time when states continue to feel financial and budgetary pressures due to the impact of the Great Recession.

• Public Pension Fact Sheet
  This document is an executive summary emphasizing key characteristics and data pertaining to traditional defined benefit pensions for public employees.   

• The Economy and Your Pension
  Group-based pension plans weathered the Great Recession better than individual account plans and provide better retirement security more efficiently than individual accounts.

• Pension Funding Gaps
  Often called unfunded liabilities, pension funding gaps are manageable and can be filled over time with annual required contributions from employees and employers and investment returns.

• Pension Contribution Requirements
  Unlike in private pensions, public employees contribute to their pension each and every paycheck.  Keeping the pension plan well funded is a shared responsibility between employees and employers. 

• The Importance of Your Pension
  Traditional defined benefit pensions provide a guaranteed monthly income for life, which is important to the financial security of retired public employees like education professionals. 

• The Importance of Your Pension (non-Social Security states)
  Traditional defined benefit pensions provide a guaranteed monthly income for life, which is especially important in states where public employees do not participate in Social Security. For these public employees, such as educators, the pension may be the only source of retirement income.

• Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs)
  COLAs help to ensure that the purchasing power of a retiree’s earned benefit is maintained, no matter how quickly prices might rise due to inflation.

• Pension Reforms
  Most states have made changes to their pension systems since 2008. Those that have studied the issue have maintained their defined benefit plans for their employees to meet the joint interests of fiscal responsibility for employers and taxpayers and retirement security for employees. 
  
  
• Pension Trends
  According to the Center on Retirement Research at Boston College, the public pension reforms already implemented will, over time, fully fill the funding gaps caused by the financial crisis.
  
  
• The Costs of Switching From a Pension to Individual Accounts
  Closing public pensions to new hires does nothing to address the current unfunded liabilities of the system. Rather, this change comes with increased costs to employers and taxpayers to run multiple retirement systems and to fund the existing pension plan.
  
  
• State-by-State Facts and Figures
  This compilation provides guidance on where to find basic pension statistics for your state and much more. As you open this PDF, the title in gray is hyperlinked to the website of the report. 
  
  
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Glossary

Pension Education Toolkit E-Briefings

To supplement the toolkit, we also recorded a series of e-briefings, a web-based service that allows viewers to watch and listen to a PowerPoint presentation anywhere, anytime and at no cost. The toolkit e-briefings are listed and linked below:

• The Economy and Your Pension 
• Pension Funding Gaps 
• Pension Contribution Requirements 
• The Importance of Your Pension for Non-Social Security States 
• Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) 
• Public Pension Trends 
• Public Pension Reforms  
• Costs of Switching From Pensions to Individual Accounts

Retirement Infographics Toolkit

Retirement security is a critical topic for retired educators. But the subject can be very complex and laden with data. To help retired teachers educate their stakeholders — like policymakers and the news media — about financial security and pension issues, we have created a series of infographics. This toolkit offers visual representations of complex data to help make the information clear, concise and understandable. The NRTA Infographics Toolkit contains the following elements: 

• Pensions Get Retirement Right
• Comparing Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Plans
• Why Pensions Are a Good Deal for Taxpayers, Employers and Employees
• How Pensions Help the Economy
• How Pension Funding Works
• Retirement and Women
• Retirement and Multicultural Americans

State Retirement Fact Sheets

In partnership with the National Institute on Retirement Security, NRTA and AARP developed a series of state-by-state fact sheets that provide in-depth information on public employee and teacher retirement systems across the country. These state-specific documents are valuable, easy-to-understand tools for educating state policymakers and the news media about the facts regarding public employee retirement plans.

More specifically, these fact sheets present an overview of how pensions work, background information about each state’s retirement systems, and state-specific data and key facts. 

We invite you to download your state fact sheet here.