Eh. I've done pretty well with the 401k system. Pensions often just seem like a way for employers to pull a bait-and-switch. Need to work for 30 years at a company for a full pension? They get you to accept a lower wage on that promise, then you get fired at year 29. Or a company recruits a bunch of young workers on a promise of a pension decades down the line. Decades later, when they're about to face a massive surge in those on the company pension rolls, the company mysteriously goes bankrupt. The company owners looted the company, wracked it up with debt, and let it go bankrupt before the pension bill came due, and left the workers holding the bag.

The nice thing about 401ks is that employers can't screw you over after the fact. I don't trust companies to be able to deliver on promises decades from now. With a 401k, they give all they're ever going to give up front, and you can make an informed decision over whether you're being fairly compensated. It's hard to judge the fair value of a pension that may or may not disappear before you're eligible to collect it decades from now. Oh, and employers only retain control over your 401k funds for as long as you work there. After that, you transfer them to an IRA account that is completely under your control.

My partner and I are in our late 30s and have made regular contributions to 401ks and IRAs. At this point, our retirement is fully funded. By this I mean we could choose to never make another contribution, and if we just let our investments sit and grow, we would be able to comfortably retire at age 65. We're still making investments, but only to move forward the date we're able to retire.

Yes, it requires some discipline and you have to educate yourself. You need to learn about things like investment ratios, index funds, etc. But ultimately it isn't that complicated as people like to pretend it is. And you have to have the discipline to not panic sell when the market drops. It's a bit different if people have to cash out for a financial emergency. But many make really stupid mistakes such as selling during a downturn, trying to time the market, instead of just buying and holding cheap index funds until retirement.

But yeah, we've done pretty well. At this point, barring some catastrophic life-altering scenarios, our retirement is assured. We don't have to worry about an employer pulling the rug out from under us. We don't have to worry about a company going bankrupt. We don't have to worry about being fired shortly before reaching reaching the number of years needed for a full pension. We don't have to stay at a job earning below-market wages for years just for the pension. We don't even have to work some arbitrary number of years; we can retire as soon as our assets are enough to provide for whatever lifestyle we're comfortable with.

And if you're just worried about running out of money in retirement? You can always invest in the stock market and then buy annuities once you reach retirement age.

Pensions have their place. But I think we tend to look at them with rose-tinted glasses. Companies bankrupting their way out of pension responsibilities was an infamous thing not too long ago.