This ignores demographic bubbles, such as the boomers retiring right now. When there were a lot of them working, there were a lot paying into the pension (which

This ignores demographic bubbles, such as the boomers retiring right now. When there were a lot of them working, there were a lot paying into the pension (which pays current workers). When there are less of them working there is not enough workers to pay benefits. If your argument is that people pay into their own retirement as an account, then current people don't get pensions, unless they paid in (which the first group at some point did not do, so back to start). At some point people must pay in to start, and that group is completely susceptible to the same market failures as before - if the market tanks when a large cohort is about to retire, then there will not be enough to cover them. Tapping the value from those not yet retiring to pay for those retiring will mean there is not significantly less for those not yet retiring. You also overplay the value needed in a 401k. No one plans to live forever, so planning for a decade or a few after retirement is fine, with an expectation that at some point you may have to live of SS alone. This works fine, and doesn't need a fear inducing 25x salary savings. Finally, companies fail, and with them pension plans fail. People move jobs a lot, so these pensions need to be mobile. Many pension plans require a decent amount of time to even get one, so people failing to meet that lose value over and over. At least a 401k is their money. Your solution does not make these problems go away. A better solution is to have a national pension plan, where everyone pays in, and everyone get some benefits. But that's SS, which already exists. Instead of 401ks and company pensions (why do people tie retirement plans with employers anyways?) increase SS taxes and payments.