Other Post-Employment Benefit Liabilities, 2019

by Jonathan Williams, Lee Schalk, Thomas Savidge & Skip Estes

Introduction

While not as widely discussed as public pension liabilities, unfunded OPEB liabilities are significant and growing. Unfunded OPEB liabilities now total just over $1 trillion (about $3,100 per person). This valuation comes from calculating the present value of those liabilities. While it is difficult to estimate how much future liabilities will cost (because of changes in things like health care costs and mortality rates) we can estimate the value of those future liabilities today by calculating their present value.

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