A major effect of the drop in stock prices is on pensions. I am a retired member of the SEIU union.
The county I worked for has it's own pension board that is independent of other pension funds. Our board does it's own investing and because we have a defined benefit plan the investments cannot assume too much risk.
The county has an unfunded pension liability which is manageable in a good economy. It is expected to be pad off in 13 years.
The two main causes of the unfunded liability are poor decisions made in the 90's and the 2008 economy down turn when returns were zero for a couple of years.
Our pension fund had a 10.5 percent return for fiscal year end 6-30-17. So far for Jan 2018 the return has been 2.5 percent. With high returns the unfunded liability is reduced by the good returns. With poor returns the unfunded liability increases.
If we get poor returns for the next few years the payments for current employer contributions and past unfunded pension employer contributions will increase.
That will cause a reduction in services since the county cannot have a deficit. Also the employee contribution cannot rise enough to cover the costs because of laws in place. The employee contribution will increase over time, but a rising stock market helps all of us in the pension system even though we do not have personal stock market investments.
My wife has a 401K and the value of her account raises and falls with stock prices.