> You just can't underfund them or assume unrealistic stock market gains. You're absolutely correct. You cannot do these things and have functional DB plans.

> You just can't underfund them or assume unrealistic stock market gains. You're absolutely correct. You cannot do these things and have functional DB plans. An issue arises when contemplating the incentives. Every person involved in the up-front planning for DB plans is incentivized to be wildly unrealistic about the future. It's not like anyone doing the negotiating will have any real consequences, so why not offer lower contributions to win your election / union approval / make quarterly numbers? DC plans have the distinct benefit of helping incentives align. It puts the costs on the balance sheet in the short term, and accountability is much more immediate. It's not a perfect compromise. For pretty much everyone, ideally run pensions are better. It's just that getting there has proven at best incredibly difficult and unreliable.