Advocacy and Research

The final report shows that these four pension plans and their 401,500 active, retired, and deferred members contributed more than $4.8 billion to Alberta’s economy in 2021.

The plans supported over 43,700 local jobs and over $2.2 billion in local wages across the province, covering the full range of industry sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, finance, retail, accommodations, and the food supply chain.

Over 504,000 Albertans benefitted in total, with the plans also directly supporting nearly 40,000 households, including 2,900 lone-parent households and over 19,400 households with children.

The four plans have investments worth over $2.5 billion in nearly 100 communities across Alberta, including office space, apartment buildings, industrial buildings, shopping malls, and utilities such as natural gas supplying over 82,000 households in 90 communities.

With pension payments of $3.1 billion in 2021, representing 27% of all provincial retirement income, the Defined Benefit (DB) retirees from these four plans alone contributed $1 billion toward corporate, income, and consumption government tax revenue. One-fifth (20%) of all created employment and pension spending was outside the major urban centres.

This new social impact report shows that the DB pensions enjoyed by these plan members (retired and active) not only dramatically reduce financial pressures, stress, and uncertainty, but also directly increase quality of life, career satisfaction, physical and mental health, community engagement, volunteerism, and charitable donations — confirming that LAPP members' lives are enriched by their plan.

Using the Wellbeing Valuation approach, which converts subjective satisfaction into financial terms for each unique individual, the financial value of increased life satisfaction for members of these three plans alone is $1.2 billion. Combined with pension payments of $2.1 billion, the total financial, personal, and societal benefits for retired members of the included plans amounted to $3.3 billion in just one year (2021).

Primarily due to financial security, nearly two thirds (64%) of these DB plan retirees meet their financial needs very or extremely well, and are much better (203%) prepared for unexpected expenses. This directly translates to higher satisfaction with life across all regions, genders, incomes, and ages, which only increases with age as members recognize the growing importance of their plan while nearing retirement.