September 19, 2016

When California lawmakers cut a deal to increase public employee pensions, the state had a very different economic climate. We’ll talk with LA Times reporter Jack Dolan about the pension gap and what he’s learned about it.

To figure out how California got in this situation, it’s helpful to rewind the clock to the late 1990s, back to the days of the dot-com bubble. That’s when the state and local governments chose to make pension benefits a lot more generous. It’s a decision that turned out to have lasting implications.