[jdavis703]

I reckon I'll need a couple million to retire in the next several decades. As I'm still pretty young I have a personal pension liability of a couple million dollars.

My point here, what's the practical impact of this number? It's a scary number that's thrown out a lot, but is this number going to break the budget, or will pension spending as a fraction of the total budget be fairly stable?

[defen]

I don't think anyone really knows. A lot of it depends on the stock market - if it keeps going up, things will probably be fine. But if there's a big downturn it could wipe out a lot of money in the fund. At that point you could be looking at benefit cuts and/or tax increases.

[twblalock]

The CalPERS money is invested. In recessions, the pension fund shrinks and tax revenues shrink at the same time. The fraction of government spending needed to cover pensions increases as a result.

[refurb]

You forgot to mention that Calpers also assumed an 8% annualized return for their funding purposes. Slightly optimistic.

[HillaryBriss]

In Los Angeles, the percentage of the city budget going toward funding of pensions is about 20%. Fifteen years ago, it was around 5%. Will it keep rising? What other spending is crowded out? etc...