Well average life expectancy in 1978 was 69.6 years, average life expectancy in 2018 is 78.7 years. So the problem with pension obligations is people in general

Well average life expectancy in 1978 was 69.6 years, average life expectancy in 2018 is 78.7 years. So the problem with pension obligations is people in general tend to live longer, and the people who live far longer are living longer and there's more of them. Not enough people die young to offset that cost methinks. And if people are consistently drawing more than they're paying in it's not sustainable. Every solution to that problem has drawbacks. You increase the premiums and fewer people pay in. You lower the benefits and maybe fewer people pay in too. It becomes a hard sell either way. Compared to a 401k, where the company contributes 3% of an employee's salary (or somesuch) a year as an incentive to participate and if the employee screws themselves, that's their problem. It sounds a bit more attractive I imagine than all the other burdens a company has maintaining a pension program. And being responsible for it and to the recipients in perpetuity... And you couple that with, not every sort of job operated a pension program even at their heyday. Not having access to a 401k program in 2018 doesn't mean your job would have had a pension program in 1978 either...