Pew evaluates a key predictor of career workers’ standard of living in retirement.

The Pew Charitable Trusts uses three retirement security metrics to assist policymakers in evaluating how well their plans are expected to prepare public workers for retirement. This fact sheet focuses on the replacement income ratio, a commonly cited indicator that illustrates whether a worker might expect to maintain his or her standard of living in retirement.¹ This ratio—also referred to as the replacement rate—is the percentage of a worker’s pre-retirement income that is paid out by a retirement plan.

Pew’s calculation compares a worker’s combined income from a state or city pension benefit, plus Social Security, with his or her pre-retirement take-home pay. About three-quarters of state and local employees participate in Social Security.² Our research finds that most career workers in state retirement systems with Social Security coverage can expect full or close to full replacement income (a sum that matches their final take-home pay)  during retirement. While the level of resources that an individual needs in retirement will vary based on many factors, the replacement income ratio helps assess how well career workers—those who spend the majority of their work lives with the same employer—are set up for retirement. Other retirement metrics used by Pew offer better tools to measure retirement security for short- and medium-tenure workers.³

Pew’s four-step process for calculating replacement income is outlined below, using a sample plan with benefit provisions based on a typical public sector defined benefit (DB) plan whose members are covered by Social Security.⁴ Under a typical DB plan, lifetime benefits are determined based on a formula that takes into account the employee’s salary, years of service, and age. In addition, we summarize how the measure is applied for workers in hybrid plans that combine a reduced DB with an individual savings account. This design is the most common alternative to a DB and offered as the default or optional plan in 12 states.

Replacement income calculations

To calculate take-home pay, we subtract from the final salary the employee’s contributions to Social Security, Medicare, and the state retirement system. We do not account for taxes on pre- versus post-retirement income because state-level tax policies vary and because the difference in tax exposure typically has an immaterial effect on the replacement rate calculation.⁵

Step 1: Calculate the replacement income ratio of the state-sponsored benefit provided at the time of retirement compared to final salary.

A typical DB plan provides a lifetime benefit based on a formula that multiplies the employee’s years of service, final average salary, and benefit multiplier. Our analysis assumes 35 years of service, based on a start age of

30 and the assumption that workers retire once reaching normal retirement eligibility, age 65 under the sample plan.⁶ The salary for the final year of employment is assumed to be $75,000, and the final average salary, which averages salaries for the last five years, is $70,756.⁷ We assume a benefit multiplier of 1.8%, the national average and within plus or minus 0.2 percentage points of the majority of DB plans that participate in Social Security.

The benefit formula calculates an annual benefit of $44,577, which, compared to the worker’s salary in the final year of employment, results in an employer-provided replacement ratio of 59%.

Adjustments to these assumptions all affect the replacement income ratio. For example, an earlier start age would lead to a larger estimated benefit, and a later start would result in a smaller replacement income ratio.

Or if the salary were averaged over a smaller number of years, the final average salary, and corresponding benefit, would be larger.

Step 2: Adjust for the impact of inflation throughout a worker’s retirement.

Most plans offer a post-retirement benefit increase or cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to mitigate inflation in retirement, but the adjustments usually aren’t sufficient to completely offset it. The adjustments are typically either a fixed percentage increase or tied to the consumer price index (CPI) with a cap. In certain cases, these provisions also include a variable benefit component, which links the adjustment to plan investment returns or funding levels.

Pew uses plan mortality assumptions to estimate how many years an employee will spend in retirement and then uses inflation and COLA assumptions to calculate the average replacement ratio in those years.

This example assumes the sample career employee receives a 1% COLA in retirement (a percentage designed to capture the average level of benefit across states), assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, and applies the RP-2014 white collar mortality table. Based on these assumptions, the COLA offsets slightly less than half of annual inflation. Accounting for inflation reduces the retirement benefit to $39,266 and the overall replacement income ratio to 52%.

Step 3: Add expected Social Security benefit.

Our Social Security calculations replicate the official Social Security calculator, using inputs for work start and end years, as well as salary and salary growth. Benefits typically range from 30% to 40% of final salary and are estimated to be 33% for the sample career employee in this analysis, or $24,750.⁸ Once the Social Security benefit is included in the calculation, the retirement benefit increases to $64,016 and the replacement income ratio increases to 85%. Since Social Security includes a COLA based on increases in the CPI, this portion of the benefit does not need to be adjusted for inflation.

Step 4: Analyze the benefit as a percentage of take-home pay.

The final adjustment to the replacement income metric is to measure the extent to which retirement benefits replace take-home pay rather than final salary. Comparing retirement income to a worker’s take-home pay, which is often substantially less than the actual salary, offers a better assessment of a retiree’s ability to maintain a pre-retirement standard of living.

In this example, our model adjusts final salary downward by the employee’s 6.2% contribution to Social Security, 1.45% contribution to Medicare, and 7% contribution to the state retirement system, for a total of 14.65% of pay. After accounting for those contributions, the employee’s take-home pay is $64,013, compared to the $75,000  final salary. As a result, the replacement income ratio increases from 85% of final salary to 100% of final take- home pay.

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