In its recently released report, State and Local Government Pension Plans: Economic Downturn Spurs Efforts to Address Costs and Sustainability, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that most state and local government retirement systems "have assets sufficient to cover benefit payments to retirees for a decade or more," despite the recent economic downturn. The report also challenges the findings of a much-quoted May 2010 study which concluded that some public pension plans would run out of money this decade. The GAO noted that this study, conducted by Joshua D. Rauh, was "based on assumption that benefits earned to date would only be financed out of current plan assets and not from any future contributions.The projected exhaustion dates are thus not realistic estimates of when the funds might actually run out of money." GAO report on Pension Plans.pdf