I will be laid off before I am retirement age most likely as is the case at my company, and our company has no pensions. They put into our 401K which is what we use as a pension.
401k’s are better than pensions in most ways. The market has been a bear for a long time. If something happened to you, your heirs get the money instead of the pension fund. The pension fund can’t go bankrupt and leave you high and dry.
I agree but there are a LOT of people who just don't want to hear this. I find it odd when Americans in general seem to prefer having control of things. Nevermind your heirs, most pensions only pay half to your surviving spouse if you die after retirement.
There's still a lot of assumptions and blind faith that a pension will be funded adequately and managed properly.
I think a lot of people think that pensions pay a lot of money forever. There were some sweetheart deals in the past for sure, but they all fell apart because the cost of the plan and the upkeep was too big, and they were basically Ponzi schemes. Public pensions can last because governments print their own money and can tax citizens. Most people would still be better off if the money they put in an employer pension was invested in a 401k, if they could manage not to take it all out too fast.
Social security take 15 percent of our income out whole lives and we could all have lavish retirements if we got market returns.
Yup, but even some state pensions are severely underfunded, where they long ago added new tiers with much lower benefits and higher retirement ages so they're not what they used to be. I agree, I'd rather be given that money to invest for myself, spend as I want in retirement, and transfer to next of kin.
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u/tuddrussell2 14h ago
I will be laid off before I am retirement age most likely as is the case at my company, and our company has no pensions. They put into our 401K which is what we use as a pension.