September 2026

Pensions 2050: Evidence and future priorities

By Jack Jones The second Pension Commission’s interim report provides a clear and urgent call to action. It describes a system in which, although participation rates in workplace pensions have doubled due to auto-enrolment, up to 19 million working age people are not on track to meet the retirement income targets set by the first Pension Commission. The triple locked flat-rate State Pension provides a firm foundation on which retirement incomes are built, and auto-enrolment has more than doubled the numbers...

August 2026

Measuring the Fiscal Sustainability of Public Pensions

By National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems When budgets tighten and the economy falters, some states and localities have reacted to worries about pension funding ratios and unfunded liabilities by increasing employee contributions and cutting benefits. Some have even closed pension plans to new hires. Yet public pensions have a strong record of delivering retirement security efficiently: NCPERS’ 2025 update of its landmark economic impact study finds that public pensions generated $2.9 trillion in economic output and $661.9 billion in...

Multiemployer Pension Funding Study: Midyear 2026

By Tim Connor, Rex Barker, Timothy Herman & Nina Lantz The results in this study were derived from publicly available IRS Form 5500 data filed through June 2026 for all multiemployer DB plans, numbering around 1,200 plans. Data for a limited number of plans that clearly were erroneous was modified to ensure that the results were reasonable and a sufficiently complete representation of the multiemployer universe. Such adjustments were associated with an immaterial number of plans. Liability amounts were based on...

Being single in retirement – a key issue for the Pensions Commission?

By LCP The paper considers whether pensions policy is keeping pace with these changes and explores different approaches for the Pensions Commission to consider. These include strengthening pension saving for lower-earning partners, reviewing pension-sharing arrangements following the breakdown of cohabiting relationships, assessing the impact of no-fault divorce reforms, and exploring whether joint-life annuities should become the default. Get the report here

State of Pensions 2026: 7th Annual Edition

By Equable Institute State of Pensions is Equable Institute’s annual report on the status of statewide public pension systems, put into a historic context. Governments face a wide range of challenges in general – and some of the largest are growing, and often unpredictable, pension costs. State of Pensions analyzes trends in public pension funding, investments, contributions, cash flows, and benefits for 253 of the largest statewide and municipal retirement systems in all 50 states to illuminate the scale and...

June 2026

The Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth – Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

By Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights The Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth (Addendum to report A/HRC/62/42) provides advice to States on the eradication of extreme poverty in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The Roadmap aims to assist States in implementing the Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, adopted by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 21/11 and which the General Assembly welcomed in its resolution 67/164 of 20 December 2012. The Roadmap...

Insights and Analysis: The AI Revolution

By Pension Trusts Enhanced Data Management and Predictive Analytics Central to the operations of DB pensions is the handling of extensive and diverse data sets. AI can significantly improve the way data is managed through advanced data processing abilities. With machine learning algorithms, there's the potential to dissect decades of pension data. This could help identify underlying trends, enhance the valuation of long-term liabilities and fine-tune outcomes. Conventional actuarial models in Asset Liability Management (ALM) are based on time-tested statistical methods. While...

May 2026

Should Malaysia expand its social pension? Global evidence, design issues and options

By World Bank Group This study examines whether Malaysia should expand its social pension coverage and adequacy by drawing on global experiences and comparing them to the Malaysian context. It explores the impacts of social pensions on various social indicators and addresses key design issues for expansion. The paper concludes with recommendations for reforms, emphasizing the need to balance welfare and equity impacts with fiscal considerations. Get the report here

Investment Decisions of Defined Benefit Pension Plans

By Zhichuan Frank Li, Jun Wang & Yuqi Zhang This paper examines the determinants of defined benefit (DB) pension plan investment decisions of U.S. corporations with the largest 100 DB plans (Milliman 100 companies). We test two contradicting theories on DB plans. The risk-management theory indicates that firms tend to reduce risk in their pension investments when facing high risk, and the risk-shifting theory predicts the opposite because the funds’ downside risk is hedged by federal government insurance. We find...

April 2026

The Impact of Ageing on the Fiscal Sustainability of EU Health Care Systems: Projections and Policy Responses

By Boriana Goranova & Santiago Calvo Ramos  This Economic Brief analyses the effects of the expected population ageing on the public expenditure on health care in the EU, discusses the different policy options and finally describes the activities in this field by the European Commission. Get the report here