{"id":255996,"date":"2026-01-21T10:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T10:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/255996\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T10:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T10:57:12","slug":"2024-report-wrs-membership-reaches-703000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/255996\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Report: WRS Membership Reaches 703,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ACFR2024Cover.png\" width=\"220\" height=\"283\" alt=\"Cover of the 2024 ACFR\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Total participants of the Wisconsin Retirement System reached 703,515 in 2024, according to the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/etf.wi.gov\/resource\/annual-comprehensive-financial-report-2024\" data-entity-type=\"node\" data-entity-uuid=\"5338a7a8-d563-4045-9cb7-5f892d1f5451\" data-entity-substitution=\"canonical\" title=\"Annual Comprehensive Financial Report 2024\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR)<\/a> published by ETF.<\/p>\n<p>The total comprises 269,249 active employees; 193,141 inactive participants; and 241,125 retirees and annuitants.<\/p>\n<p>The ACFR as of and for the year ending December 31, 2024, provides information about the WRS and other benefit programs administered by ETF, including related financial statements.<\/p>\n<p>It received an unmodified, or \u201cclean,\u201d audit opinion from the Legislative Audit Bureau.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, the WRS continues to be one of the best-funded public employee retirement systems in the country. It attributes its financial strength to the system&#8217;s unique plan design, funding discipline, strong governance, and the effective investment strategies of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swib.state.wi.us\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">State of Wisconsin Investment Board<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>By end of 2024, the WRS net position rose by 5% to $134.5 billion from the previous year, and the WRS paid a total of $7.6 billion in benefit expenses.<\/p>\n<p>There are two common funding measurements for public pension plans: fair value and funding value.<\/p>\n<p>The fair value-based ratio, calculated according to standards issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), puts the WRS\u2019s funding level at 99% as of December 31, 2024. Because the GASB requires\u00a0plan\u00a0assets at fair value, this ratio fluctuates yearly depending on investment performance.<\/p>\n<p>The WRS&#8217;s funding level remains at 100% using the funding value-based ratio, which smooths investment gains and losses over a five-year period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Total participants of the Wisconsin Retirement System reached 703,515 in 2024, according to the latest Annual Comprehensive Financial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175],"class_list":{"0":"post-255996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}