By: Russ Kamp, CEO, Ryan ALM, Inc.

Milliman’s Public Pension Funding Index (PPFI) has been released for July 2025. As a reminder, the PPFI compiles and analyzes data from the nation’s 100 largest public DB plans.

For the fourth consecutive month, investment gains have led to improved funded ratios for America’s largest public DB funds. July’s investment gain produced a $5 billion increase in the PPFI funded status, and saw the funded ratio improve from 82.9% as of June 30, to 83.0% as of July 31. The indexes constituents produced an estimated market gain of 0.5% during the month, with individual plans’ returns ranging from -0.2% to 1.2%. As a result, total assets for the members of the index are now $5.477 trillion as of July 31. A $20 million increase from the prior month.

Given the static accounting for public fund liabilities, the deficit between plan assets and liabilities shrank with the growth in assets decreasing from $1.127 trillion at the end of June to $1.122 trillion at the end of July. Importantly, there are now 38 plans that are more than 90% funded at month-end. Unfortunately, 11 plans remain at less than 60% funded.

According to Becky Sielman, co-author of the Milliman PPFI, there are 14 plans with a funding “surplus”, which sounds great, but the plan’s ROA is the discount rate permitted under GASB accounting, which is likely substantially higher than the discount rate for corporate DB plan liabilities that utilize a AA corporate blended rate. As a result, pension liabilities are understated. One can only hope that U.S. interest rates remain stable or rise from their current levels, as a declining rate environment would put additional funding pressure on liabilities, which are bond-like in nature. Please click on the link below to view the entire report.

View the Milliman 100 Public Pension Funding Index.