New Jersey’s public sector defined benefit pension systems are underfunded by more than $170 billion according to a new study, “The Crisis in Public Sector Pension Plans: A Blueprint for Reform in New Jersey” by Eileen Norcross of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute. This is not a sustainable path, and in order to avert a fiscal crisis and ensure that future state employees have dependable retirement savings, Norcross and Biggs offer recommendations for state policy makers to reform the public pension system.

Joining us for the podcast is one of the author’s of this study, Eileen Norcross. Eileen is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She blogs on state and local issues at Neighborhood Effects.