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The 80% Pension Funding Target, High Assumed Returns, And Generational Inequity

Contemporary Economic Policy

Published online on

Abstract

Generational inequity in pension funding is highly sensitive to the lax policies of 80% funding targets and high assumed returns to investment. I develop a simple, powerful relationship between steady‐state (SS) inequity in contributions—the percent of extra contributions to fund prior cohorts—and the SS unfunded ratio. I then show how the SS unfunded ratio is governed by x% funding targets and the gap between assumed and true returns. The SS degree of inequity is over 60% under an 80% funding target and over 50% with a one‐point gap between assumed and true returns. (JEL H75)