Last year was one of the best ever for the CalPERS investment fund, a gain of $47 billion that boosted the total to $350 billion. But pension funding only increased from 68 to 71 percent of the projected assets needed to pay future costs.
A CalPERS report last week said investments earned 15.7 percent last year, nearly double the 7 percent target. Now after a lengthy bull market experts predict CalPERS returns will average 6.2 percent next decade, then increase to average 7 percent in the long term.
That a $47 billion investment gain only makes a small change in pension funding shows the difficulty CalPERS still faces in recovering from a $100 billion investment loss a decade ago, when the funding level nosedived from 101 percent to 61 percent.
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