Released: 10/6/2010
Author(s): Stuart Buck
The city of Los Angeles will face enormous budgetary pressures from the growing deficits in public pensions, both at a state and local level. In this policy brief, I estimate that Los Angeles faces a total $152.6 billion liability for pensions that are underfunded – including $49.1 billion for the city pension systems, $2.4 billion for retiree health benefits, and an estimated $101 billion share of unfunded liabilities for California state retiree benefits. These estimates are made by correcting the state and local pension plans’ figures, which use a too-optimistic assumption that their investments will grow by about 8% per year for the indefinite future.