While most remain in-state, an increasing number of California’s retired state worker population receiving CalPERS pension benefits are migrating out of California to nearby states such as Arizona or Nevada. The number of out-of-state pension benefit recipients increased by 29% from 2019 to 2025 and experts in the field of public policy mainly attribute these trends to high housing costs. They also noted that in the last fiscal year, these individuals received less benefits on average compared to those that remain in-state, supporting their claim that those with lower incomes tend to be the ones moving away. 

Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning Michael Stoll shared in an article by The Sacramento Bee that these migration trends also saw an increase at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but due to its impact on housing prices and availability, the migration rate soon fell. “It’s not clear if we’ll get back to the steady state of migration before COVID,” he said.