Description: Defined benefit DB pension plans continue to dominate the retirement landscape for the roughly 20 million state and local government workers in the United States. In most state and local plans, pension benefits are protected by constitutional, statutory, or common law guarantees. In many cases, these guarantees make the benefit promises to participants virtually free of risk. Finance theory is unambiguous that the discount rate used to value future pension obligations should reflect the riskiness of the liabilities.