The Crushing Burden Of Public Employee Retirement

Every single California household is on the hook for over $30,000 in public employee pension debt. And even that may be an underestimate.

The average California household's share of the debt for underfunded state and local government employee pensions comes to about $30,500.

Stanford University studies released last week and in December for the first time aggregate public pension shortfalls statewide. Using moderate assumptions about future investment returns, the unfunded liability is about $379 billion.

Hard-core pension reformers will maintain that the number is much more.