Public pension funds provide benefits to nearly 10 million people, invest over $3.6 trillion in assets, and are deeply underfunded. A new Rockefeller Institute report and policy brief put a spotlight on how the methods that public retirement systems and governments use to fund pensions are affected by investment return volatility. The analysis concludes that a typical 75-percent funded public pension plan has a one in six chance of falling below 40-percent funded within the next 30 years, a crisis level currently faced by only a few major plans. The research brief and associated report are the beginning of a series from the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Pension Simulation Project.