BACKNEXT

What if I work for the government?

That's a different story. Traditional pensions are still offered by about 84% of state and local governments. How come? Simple: It's hard for a politician to get elected, or re-elected, on a platform that vows to take away the traditional pension gravy train.

That said, given the budget challenges in many states, many public-sector pension plans do not have enough money set aside to cover all the future payouts promised to current workers. That doesn't bode well for taxpayers in those states; short of a miraculous stock market rally that pushes all the plans into overfunded status, at some point the government is going to have to find the money to pay the retirees. And that probably will require higher taxes.

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.