Waste of the Day: Six-Figure Pensions Bleed Retirement Funds Dry

Topline: There were at least 235,502 retirees across the country who collected public pensions of $100,000 or more in 2024 — costing taxpayers $30.6 billion — and there are likely many others. Laws in 29 states prohibit pension information from being released to the public, meaning there are huge swaths of data still hidden.

It’s a slight increase from 2023, when 222,569 people earned six-figure pensions worth a total of $28.7 billion.

Massive public pensions

Key facts: Open the Books has obtained nearly all pension data from the 21 states where it is legal to do so: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

There were 2,389 people with pensions of $250,000 or more, including 12 with pensions greater than $500,000.

Of the 18 largest pensions, nine were in Oregon. Joseph Robertson, an ophthalmologist and former president of Oregon Health & Science University, earned a $1 million pension. He has not worked since 2018. The next-highest pension was $786,000.

Almost all of the six-figure pensions came from just three states. There were 139,216 in California, 42,739 in Illinois and 22,819 in New York. New Jersey had 6,850 of the pensions.

Unsurprisingly, those states have some of the most pension debt in the U.S., according to Equable’s “Pension Plan Funded Ratio Rankings 2024.” California’s retirement systems would need an extra almost $300 billion to pay the pensions the state has promised to future retirees. Illinois would need an extra $211.7 billion, and New Jersey is third-worst with an unfunded liability of $91.1 billion. New York is missing $50.9 billion, or sixth worst.

Fourteen technically insolvent public pension funds

There are 14 pension funds in the country that are short at least 50% of the money they need to pay future pensions, according to Equable. Nine of them are in Illinois. The California Judges’ Retirement System is only 1.8% funded; it has promised $2.4 billion in future pensions but has just $43 million in assets.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: As pension payments increase year after year with no money available to meet the future costs, taxpayers will eventually be on the hook for billions of dollars unless significant reforms are enacted.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.