Do Benefit Cuts Encourage Public Employees to Leave?

The brief’s key findings are:

• Financially troubled state and local pensions may need to cut benefits for current workers, but such cuts could also induce some workers to leave.
• To assess this human resource impact, the analysis looks at a 2005 reform in Rhode Island that reduced benefits for some current workers.
• The results show that the affected employees were significantly more likely to leave the government over the next four years.
• Although the direct cost of hiring new workers was relatively small, governments should consider how losing skilled workers affects the quality of public services.