This brief’s key findings are:
- Workers who work a full career in their city or county can expect a retirement income of between 45 and 80 percent of their pre-retirement income.
- Career employees of local governments who participate in Social Security can expect retirement income replacement rates of 20 to 30 percentage points higher than employees whose governments do not participate in Social Security.
- These and other variations mean that many local workers will need to be disciplined about participating in savings plans, outside of their primary plans, to meet their retirement security goals.