March 16, 2010 — National Underwriter reports that in 2009, state and local pension plans performed better than their private sector plans, according a study of data from the Federal Reserve.

The National Institute on Retirement Security, Washington, D.C., is making that point in an analysis of trends revealed in the Fed’s Flow of Funds data.  For the year, public pension plans posted gains of 16%, as compared with 13% gains for defined benefit plans in the private sector, according to the NIRS analysts.

Such a large performance gap between public and private DB plans is new, they say.  They attribute the shift to fairly dramatic changes that corporate plans have made to their portfolios in recent years.

Read the full article here