How do New Mexico’s unfunded government employee pension costs stack up?

The Pew Center does a great deal of solid work to educate the public on various state economic issues. The two images below detail New Mexico’s unfunded retirement costs as of 2013. As the first chart shows, New Mexico’s unfunded burden is the 6th-heaviest in the nation among US states. No neighboring state comes close to having New Mexico’s burden levels which further makes us uncompetitive with our neighbors.

As the following chart shows, New Mexico’s unfunded pension costs rose quite quickly as a share of personal income in the wake of the financial downturn of 2008. It went down slightly between 2012 and 2013, but more needs to be done to make our pension system sustainable (the best and most sustainable option is to move to a defined contribution 401-K style system as opposed to the current defined-benefit system which puts workers’ retirement in the hands of government officials and puts taxpayers on the hook for future benefits.  The full Pew report and charts can be found here.