7 Pension tension.

• Position: STATELINE - Brief article

Rhode Island lawmakers passed a major overhaul of their public employees' pension system. The plan will cut unfunded pension liability by 41 percent by suspending cost-of-living increases, raising the retirement age of most employees to match their Social Security retirement age, and switching to a hybrid system of defined benefits and defined contributions. Rhode Island is the first state in at least a quarter-century to revise the basic structure of a pension plan for current state employees. It was one of only two states with less than 50 percent of the assets needed to...