State Death Spiral By The Numbers

As the Register Watchdog detailed last month, the average pension benefit for state workers is below $30,000 only when taking into account workers who retired well before pension benefits skyrocketed in the past decade. As Register reporter Teri Sforza put it: "While the average pension in [the California Public Employees Retirement System] is less than $30,000, that figure includes all retirees from all prior years – including those sane years before 1999. (It wasn't until the 2000s that elected officials lost their minds and boosted public pension benefits to the moon and stars.) For state workers retiring in 2008-09 with more than 30 years of service, the average pension was more than $66,000. In a five-year comparison of public pension distributions from 2006-10, the number of retirees increased by 17 percent, while the number receiving pensions of $100,000 and above increased by more than 230 percent."
http://articles.ocregister.com/2011-04-26/news/29480264_1_government-employee-pension-systems-public-pension-public-sector-pensions