You’re reading about an extremely small subset of companies with pensions. However, they serve as a very cautionary tale: pensions do not have zero risk. They

You’re reading about an extremely small subset of companies with pensions. However, they serve as a very cautionary tale: pensions do not have zero risk. They are very far from it. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a risk comparison between defined benefit (pension) and defined contribution (401k) plans. I’d suspect that the defined benefit risk is lower, but not by much. There are two main problems with pensions that I see: 1. The longer you work someplace, the more locked in you are. Pensions are structured such that working at the same place for 40 years is better than working at four different places for 10 years each, even if you get paid the exact same salary. 2. When you die, your children get nothing. With the 401k, whatever your balance is goes to your heirs. You can argue that it is better for society for your children to get nothing: that is a valid point of view. But we have a system in place where some people pass on assets to their children and others do not, and the differentiator between the two is the employer. That’s crazy, and the only logical way to play this game is to be on the winning side.