What I'm saying is that in order to do a fair comparision, you should include the total amount of (inflation adjusted) income your father got from the govt for

What I'm saying is that in order to do a fair comparision, you should include the total amount of (inflation adjusted) income your father got from the govt for his job, not just the yearly income recieved during working years. To illustrate, it would cost about a million dollars today to buy 20 years worth of $60k/year income (inflation adjusted). And that's using TIPS which have favorable rates right now. 5 years ago it probably would have cost more than double that. Sure, someone could fund that themselves, but then they'd need to make more while they're working to stash that away on their own. Which is why you need to look at total income.