To control rising pension costs, many states are reducing the generosity of the retirement plans they offer their employees, partly by increasing required employee contributions. These reforms, however, ignore the employee recruitment and retention problems created by traditional pension plans. Using New Jersey as a case study, this brief shows how state retirement plans discourage younger workers from joining the state's workforce, lock in middle-aged workers even if a job is not a good fit, and push older workers into retirement. Recent reforms make these plans even less appealing to a modern, mobile workforce.