State public employee pay and pensions are, on average, pretty modest.

In a Washington Post article documenting some outrageous abuses of the public employee pension system - the most egregious anecdote of which has been fixed and is no longer possible - a more significant fact is all but buried:  The average member in California of the largest public employee union, AFSCME,  "earns less than $45,000 a year and receives an annual pension of roughly $19,000." This reality flies in the face of the current demonization of public employees and attempts to destroy their collective bargaining rights by GOP Governors and their national party apparatchiks.