Hawaii Employees Retirement System (ERS)

Hawaii Employees Retirement System (ERS) is severely underfunded at 60%, with $13.4B in unfunded liability. Plans in this bracket face significant solvency risk and are typically on regulatory funding-improvement plans, with active intervention from PBGC for private plans or state pension boards for public ones.

Hawaii Employees Retirement System (ERS) is a public-sector pension plan sponsored by State of Hawaii — covering government employees (state, local, or special-district workers). Public plans are not ERISA-governed and not PBGC-insured; they rely on state-level oversight and tax-base solvency. The plan remains active — accruing new benefits for current employees and accepting new participants. Among private-sector single-employer plans, the active status is increasingly rare as employers freeze accruals while continuing to fund existing obligations; public-sector plans are more often still actively accruing.

On scale: $20.0B in plan assets across 132,000 covered participants. With 65,000 workers still accruing and 67,000 drawing benefits, the plan has the size to support institutional asset management and full-time actuarial staff. Active and retired participants are roughly balanced (65,000 active, 67,000 retired). The plan is in a steady-state cash-flow phase where new accruals offset benefit payments. Annual cash flows: $1.5B in sponsor contributions versus $1.8B in benefit payments. Investment performance over the most recent year ran 5.2%, against the plan's assumed long-term return of 7.0%.

PBGC risk classification: high. The plan is on enhanced monitoring and may face funding-improvement or rehabilitation-plan requirements depending on multi-year trajectory. Public plans like Hawaii Employees Retirement System (ERS) are not PBGC-insured. The benefit guarantee rests on the sponsoring government's ability and willingness to make required contributions, which interacts with state and local tax-base dynamics.