Nice Benefits! Add in health and retirement, and 128 L.A. County lifeguards earned total compensation of over $100,000 last year. Los Angeles County boasts the world’s largest professional lifeguard association. But most of the association’s 850 guards work seasonally. The incomes of the 150 year-round lifeguards can seem surprisingly rich to anyone raised on the...

Last year, 8,088 retirees in the Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association (LACERA) received yearly pension and medical benefits packages worth at least $100,000, a more than 11% increase from the previous year, according to Transparent California’s recently published 2014 pension data. At the same time, the employer’s annual required contribution – the cost borne by taxpayers...