California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is currently the largest public employee pension fund in the United States and the third largest pension fund in the world.
The number of private equity funds it invests in is close to 600. The current situation of CalPERS CalPERS was established in 1932 under the laws of California, USA, with the purpose of accumulating and providing retirement pensions for state government employees. It is a professional (state, city, county)
Government employees and non-teaching employees of schools) are an annuity plan with added characteristics. It is a second-pillar pension plan that is different from social security.
After the 1960s, CalPERS also provided health care benefits to members.
Currently, it has more than 1.4 million participants.
Financially, CalPERS is a defined benefit (DB-type) pension plan. Employers and employees pay premiums respectively. The fund is operated by a trust and is managed by the fund’s management committee as the sole trustee.
The fund's benefit payment is based on a predetermined formula to calculate the specific pension amount. The main parameters in the calculation formula are the beneficiary's age, service years and salary before retirement.
As of fiscal year 2004 (the end of June 2004), the total number of participants in the CalPERS program was 1.4171 million, including 403,000 retired employees and other beneficiaries, and 1.014 million active employees.
Among active employees, state government employees, local government employees, and school employees accounted for 31%, 32%, and 37% respectively.
The average monthly pension for retirees is $1,670, the average years of service before retirement is 18.8 years, the average retirement age is 60 years old (50 years old for disabled persons), and 83% of retirees and beneficiaries live in California.
The fund's total contributions for the year were US$3.7 billion, of which employees contributed US$1.8 billion and employers contributed US$1.9 billion.
Pension payments of $7.65 billion were made that year.
The accumulation of funds over the years has continued to grow.
Figure 1 shows the changes in the size of the CalPERS fund over the past 20 years.