Retirement Reform Lessons: The Experience of Palm Beach Public Safety Pensions
A new case study examines the impacts of the actions of the Town of Palm Beach when substantial changes were made to the retirement plans offered to the town’s employees. The case study details the 2012 decision by the Palm Beach Town Council to close its existing defined benefit (DB) pension systems for its employees, including police officers and firefighters.
Retirement Reform Lessons: The Experience of Palm Beach Public Safety Pensions outlines how the “combined” retirement plans offered dramatically lower DB pension benefits and new individual 401(k)-style defined contribution (DC) retirement accounts. Following a large, swift exodus of public safety employees to neighboring employers that increased costs in human resource areas, the town reconsidered the changes. In 2016, the Town Council voted to abandon the DC plans and to improve the pension plan.
Debunking the Job-Hopping Myth: A Data-Driven Look at Tenure and Turnover Among Younger Workers
Contrary to popular belief that Millennials and Generation Z employees are constantly switching jobs, new research from the National Institute on Retirement Security finds that younger workers today show job retention patterns that closely mirror previous generations at the same stage of their careers.
Evolution and Growth: How Public Pension Plans Have Diversified Their Investments Amid Changing Markets
A report from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) and Aon examines the changes public pension plan investing has undergone throughout the twenty-first century.
Pensionomics 2025: Measuring the Economic Impact of Defined Benefit Pension Expenditures
Pensionomics 2025: Measuring the Economic Impact of Defined Benefit Pension Expenditures finds pending powered by U.S. private and public sector defined benefit pensions contributed significantly to the economy. In 2022, retiree spending of public and private sector pension benefits generated $1.5 trillion in total economic output, supporting 7.1 million jobs across the nation.
In partnership with AARP and NRTA, NIRS has developed a series of state-by-state infographic fact sheets regarding the public employee and teacher retirement systems across the country.
These fact sheets present a snapshot of these retirement systems along with key data from NIRS research and other sources.
