Economy

The mayor of El Monte, a cash-strapped San Gabriel Valley city with many retired employees drawing two pensions, says there’s "no rational justification" for the double pensions.

On a recent rainy morning in Los Angeles, Maria Bernal’s stove clicks to life with a bright blue flame to toast bread on a griddle for her 9-year-old son Edwin to smear with peanut butter. As she scoops papaya chunks into the blender for a smoothie, she recalls her worry during all the years when […]

Rocio Zavala is doing her best to keep her daughter from eating her coupons. It’s 11:30 on a Friday morning and Zavala, 30 years old and unemployed, is sitting at a foldout table in her living room, snipping, sorting, and stacking the freshly clipped squares of paper, while cooing at 3-year-old Deysy. The mother’s hands […]

One in four El Monte residents lives in poverty. Yet taxpayers pay a steep price to fund bonus pensions and other perks for city workers.

Cities and states across the country are facing public employee pension debt that is challenging and, in some cases, crippling their budgets. But some municipalities are experimenting with ways to solve that problem.

Pension costs for state and local government will begin to rise in 2017 after CalPERS officials voted to throttle back the expectations on profits earned from its $299 billion portfolio.

As they suit up for battle against the Trump administration, Democrats who dominate California’s Legislature vow to unleash one of the superpowers of holding a supermajority: the ability to enact laws immediately.An underplayed consequence of the fact that they won two-thirds of the seats in both houses last month is that—if they stick together—California Democrats […]

California faces a $240 billion unfunded pension liability. But retired state workers who receive pensions say they are tired of drawing public blame.

Retirement benefits now eat up 20% of city’s general fund revenue. Touted cost controls won't have real impact for decades.

Gov. Jerry Brown was confident his-12 point plan could reform California’s pension crisis. Five years later, the state’s unfunded liabilities continue to pile up with little change. CALmatter’s Judy Lin explains why the plan failed to progress.