> 2. The death of pensions matters. In the post-pension world, maxing out your 401K and then some is a bill. Period. $100K - $20K = $80K. That's almost certainl

> 2. The death of pensions matters. In the post-pension world, maxing out your 401K and then some is a bill. Period. $100K - $20K = $80K. That's almost certainly "paycheck to paycheck" territory if you're raising more than one kid without a spouse, even in low CoL areas. When comparing earnings across time, it's almost more important to consider pensions in addition to inflation. The death of pensions also frees up (lots of) money for zero-sum competition, especially the kid-related variety, which includes housing in desirable (=the schools are safe and have good outcomes) areas, or private school tuition, tutoring, et c. If you want to save but half your peers have already chosen "defect" and are putting an extra $20,000/yr toward their kids, who will be competing with your kids for scarce resources in the not-so-distant future, it gets damn tempting to make a choice that's very bad for your retirement but gives your kids a better chance of, if not rising, at least not dropping in socio-economic class.