Every few years, somewhere in America, voters are asked to dig deeper into their pockets to pay more for their public schools. A new sales tax here, or an extension of a property tax or parcel tax increase there. The typical pitch? This is a necessary investment in our kids, otherwise they won’t have enough music or science or laptops. The promise follows a familiar pattern: we need more money for education so we can have more resources for classrooms and better educational outcomes.
The problem is that the money is often not going where people think, as we show in a new school district pension atlas covering 12,800 districts around the U.S. These numbers have largely been invisible until now, and the fiscal picture is not reassuring.
In 2023, pension contributions nationally absorbed over 10 cents of every dollar of associated education spending — the portion of school district budgets tied to employees who teach, support, and operate America’s schools — up from 8.5 cents in 2015. These contributions amounted as of the latest year of data to $77 billion annually that could go to pay directly for teachers and textbooks.
While associated education expenditures increased by $59 billion in real terms between 2015-2023, pension contributions absorbed approximately one-third of that increase.
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U.S. School Pension Atlas
District-level pension contributions and their impact on education budgets, 2015–2023
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Around 1/3rd of the real increase in annual $ for U.S. public schools since 2015 is getting consumed by pension contributions. In states like NJ and IL, it’s over 100%. We got the numbers for 12,800 school districts – read about it and check out your district in our new tool. ⬇️