Totally not true. It might have been true when the system was first set up, but currently, SOA employees in Tier 4 are essentially in a 401K system, which is invested in the stock market. Similar to the Social Security System, a percentage of the employees' paychecks are taken for the retirement fund and matched by the State of Alaska. The difference from the SS system is that the money is actually invested so that it grows over time rather than is spent by the government.

Oil prices have nothing to do with it and SOA employees do not pay into the Social Security System.

Stock market retirement only has risks if you are sort of stupid about investing. Wide diversification protects the corpus of your fund if you don't panic when the market goes down, thereby buying high and selling low. The general market always outperforms itself over a 10- year period. Don't look when the news is bad and you'll come back to it in three months and find you had nothing to worry about.