“Most state and local governments in the United States offer retirement benefits to their
employees in the form of guaranteed pensions. To fund these promises, the governments
contribute taxpayer money to public systems. Even under states’ own disclosures and
optimistic assumptions about future investment returns, assets in the pension systems will
be insufficient to pay for the pensions of current public employees and retirees.”
http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/rauh_debtdeficits_36pp_final_digital_v2revised4-11.pdf