{"id":23291,"date":"2025-10-25T19:34:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T19:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/23291\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T19:34:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T19:34:06","slug":"california-leads-in-debt-among-all-50-states-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/23291\/","title":{"rendered":"California leads in debt among all 50 states: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2013 A new Reason Foundation\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0pegs California<\/a> as the state with the nation\u2019s highest debt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report found that the California state government carries more debt than any other state, with $497 billion in liabilities. The findings stem from 2023, the most recent year for which complete data was available, according to the Reason Foundation,\u00a0a think tank with offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s state government debt pencils out to about $12,500 per Californian, the report found. However, if local government and public school district debt is added to the mix, the state\u2019s total government debt jumps to more than $1 trillion \u2013 making each Californian\u2019s share more than $27,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state and local governments in California carry about $20,000 of long-term debt per resident in the state,\u201d Mariana Trujillo, managing director of government finance at Reason Foundation and the report\u2019s lead author, told The Center Square. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of money that has only grown and is expected to only grow unless sustainable reforms and reasonable compromises are reached.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the state\u2019s burden stems from long-term debt, defined in the report as debt that is due in more than a year. That includes bonds, loans, and notes, unfunded pension liabilities, unfunded retiree health care benefits, and accrued leave payouts, according to the report. The report also goes on to explain that California\u2019s unpaid bond debt totals $111.8 billion, making California the state with the most outstanding bond debt.<\/p>\n

The report comes months after the California Legislature passed a record\u00a0$325 billion preliminary budget<\/a>, much to the chagrin of Republican lawmakers who thought the budget the legislature passed in June was \u201cdestined for despair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis budget continues to overspend while hoping for a growth in revenue instead of cautiously preparing for the worst,\u201d Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, told The Center Square in June.<\/p>\n

Spending is up in California\u00a050 percent per capita<\/a>\u00a0since 2019, amounting to an increase of about $106.3 billion, The Center Square previously reported.<\/p>\n

Other states with high state government debt that neared the top of the list included New York, at $233.27 billion; Illinois, at $222.82 billion; Texas, at $216.93 billion; New Jersey, at $213.35 billion; and Massachusetts, at $120.09 billion. Elsewhere in the West, Washington state had the eighth highest amount of debt with $97 billion, which rises to\u00a0$143 billion<\/a>\u00a0when school districts and local governments are added.<\/p>\n

HOW SAN FRANCISCO\u2019S MAYOR SCORED A POLITICAL VICTORY BY KEEPING TRUMP OUT<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo do proper reform, that would ensure proper and full funding of public employee retirement benefits, is a great step, and to curb expenses and better align expenses to revenues and prioritize the essential programs would be the next step in making strides to reduce the necessity to keep issuing bonds every year,\u201d Trujillo told The Center Square.<\/p>\n

Members of the California Assembly and Senate who sit on budget and financial committees were unavailable to comment to The Center Square on Friday. Also unavailable were representatives from the California Department of Finance, the Public Employees Retirement System, the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission, and the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 A new Reason Foundation\u00a0report\u00a0pegs California as the state with the nation\u2019s highest debt. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16752,18249,7,9,8,13991],"class_list":["post-23291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-budgets","tag-budgets-and-deficits","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-debt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}