Center for Economic Analysis

This study explores the exposure of rural communities to the rising risk of public and private pension fund insolvency. As rural communities continue to grey, America's heartlands will increasingly rely on pension incomes to drive their economies. The statuses of private, multiemployer and public pension funds are reviewed and standard input-output multiplier analyses are conducted to relate changes to larger regional impacts. Of the Midwestern counties selected in this study, the share of income tax returns with pension or annuity incomes ranged from 16 percent to 40 percent, comprising between six and 23 percent of total household adjusted gross income.