The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report, State and Local Government Retiree Benefits: Current Status of Benefit Structures, Protections, and Fiscal Outlook for Funding Future Costs, that provides an overview of state and local government retiree benefits, including "the types of benefits provided and how they are structured, how retiree benefits are protected and managed, and the fiscal outlook for retiree benefits and what governments are doing to ensure they can meet their future commitments."

Using a model that stimulates the fiscal outlook for the state and local sector, the GAO obtained data from various organizations and conducted site visits to three states that illustrate a range of benefit structures, protections and fiscal outlooks. The report estimates that future pension costs (currently about nine percent of employee pay) would require an increase in annual government contribution rates of less than a half percent. Estimated future retiree health care costs (currently about two percent of employee pay) would more than double by the year 2050 if they continue to be funded on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Read the highlights and full report at the U.S. Government Accountability Office website.