There’s a lot more historical context than the mere throwaway line that “401ks were a mistake” as seems to have now become the conventional wisdom.
Forbes post, “Fact Check: Were 401(k)s Really An ‘Accident Of History’?”
There’s a lot more historical context than the mere throwaway line that “401ks were a mistake” as seems to have now become the conventional wisdom.
Of course all you say about 401k plans and defined benefit plans is correct, but you left out one key factor. To actually get value from a pension the worker must be prepared to have a 25, 30 of more year career. With today’s worker changing jobs every 3-4 years a DB plan will be nearly worthless. Aside from regulations and accounting rules workers killed the pension.
and, of course, the median job tenure for American workers in the private sector going back to WWII was… 5 years (Employee Benefit Research Institute – https://www.ebri.org/content/trends-in-employee-tenure-1983-2018). No wonder so few American workers benefited from a system that, for some reason, many wistfully look back upon..
I suspect that was not the case among the employers offering defined benefits even it it was overall