How many public workers without Social Security could fall short?

Abstract

The brief's key findings are: (1) About 5 million state and local workers are not covered by Social Security on their current job. (2) The law requires that their pension plans provide a benefit equal to what they would have received upon retirement if they were covered by Social Security. (3) While all plans meet the letter of the law, a prior study found that 43 percent of them do not provide lifetime benefits equal to Social Security for some workers. (4) The workers who lose out are those who leave in mid-career, as their pensions are based on wages when they depart, whose real value erodes over time. (5) This new study finds that this group accounts for about 17 percent of current noncovered workers, so hundreds of thousands could fall short.