Under the new GDP methodology, savings associated with a worker's government pension plan will be counted as personal
savings, rather than government savings. That doesn't affect the
GDP, but it does boost the nation's personal savings rate.
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I couldn't find any documentation of the new methodology, so if anybody has it I'd appreciate a link.
Seems to me the issue is how the change in personal saving is offset, or not, on the government side. No Federal pension is funded in the same way as a private one -- there is no separate stock of private sector financial assets. The only real Federal gov saving, such as it is, is reduction of public debt. So the only quasi-legitimate way to register added personal saving is to snip the same amount off the Federal surplus (or add to a deficit). To me this is also suspect because in effect it credits individuals with some reduction of Federal debt and implies ownership of assets, whereas what we have is the somewhat different promise of benefits embodied in current public policy and law.
By contrast, if pensions of state and local govt sector workers are in question, there is a relatively direct 'leakage' reflected in ownership of financial assets founded on the worker's pension contributions.
mbs