Fiscal stress pressures state legislators to either raise taxes or cut spending, but public pensions provide a vehicle to postpone tax increases and maintain current spending. I estimate that states cut their pension contributions at seven times the rate of other spending in response to fiscal stress. The cumulative impact of state undercontributions due to fiscal stress explains about 4% of mid-2008 actuarial underfunding. States not paying actuarially required contributions for reasons other than fiscal stress explains an additional quarter of underfunding. As investment returns explain little underfunding, much underfunding appears due to insufficient employee and actuarially required government contributions to keep up with growing pension liabilities.
