
Whether or not you think the stock market is a good measure of economic improvement, it does go up faster than inflation which is the point of private retirement accounts. In certain states (NY, IL, NJ most notoriously…all blue states with atrocious levels of union influence), the public pension system was or is a mess because the government overpromised and underpaid. But that had little to do with how the money was invested, and a lot to do with insufficient stateside payments every month.