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Public Pension Earnings, Holdings Largely Static in First Quarter

The earnings that public pension plans have realized, and their holdings, have changed little since the fourth quarter of 2014. That according to the U.S. Census Bureau in its quarterly survey of public pensions during the first quarter of 2015, which it released on June 25. The survey provides national summary data on the revenues, expenditures and composition of assets of the 100 largest public employee pension systems of state and local governments.

According to the report, these plans earned $78.226 billion on their investments during the period Jan. 1-March 31, 2015. Contributions by employees and governments added a figure nearly equivalent to half of that — just over $34 billion. And during the first quarter, those plans paid out just under $62 billion.

The first quarter performance is close to that of the fourth quarter of 2014, when these plans earned $80.233 billion, added $35.356 billion from contributions, and paid out just over $62 billion.

Cash and security holdings by these public employee pension plans grew slightly from the last quarter of 2014 to the first of this year, rising from close to $3.344 trillion to almost $3.4 trillion. The largest component was corporate stock, which accounted for over a quarter of those holdings.