The survey coverage includes public employee retirement systems administered by State and Local governments throughout the nation. Retirement systems were only included if they met the following two criteria: (1) they were sponsored by a recognized unit of government as defined by the Census Bureau and (2) their membership was comprised of public employees compensated with public funds.

A retirement system is a pension plan in which investments, contributions, and benefits are administered as a separate entity independent of the parent government general fund. Assets are accumulated and benefits paid under a particular set of actuarial assumptions, including employee age, compensation, and service credits. They include single employer systems, in which one government is the sole sponsor of the pension plan, as well as multiple employer systems, where two or more governments maintain membership on behalf of their employees.

The sampling frame is the 2002 Census of Local Governments file updated with births, deaths, and mergers since fiscal year 2002. There are 2,670 governments on the sampling frame. Of those, approximately 1,100 units were sampled.