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If you're promising someone something in the future (pension) for work that they're going to do now, then you should fund that. If your salary included a big bonus or deferred benefits, would you mind that your manager doesn't set aside any money for that promised benefit?

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It's the indefinite funding of a fixed obligation that seems weird to me. If my manager said, "I'm sorry I can't pay your $5000 bonus next year because we don't have $111,000 set aside in a fund earning 4.5% in perpetuity" i'd be a lot more upset. Honestly there's probably something about the accounting that I don't understand.

Pension is not bonus. You don’t get to modulate the amount depending on how generous you’re feeling in a given year. Workers have as much right to it as to the wages they’ve earned and saved into a 401k or IRA. It’s the enployee’s money; the employer is just a steward. Failing to pay a pension is the same as robbing a former employee’s house to take back the wages you’be already paid them.

I'd never take a pension over a 401k. I'd much rather be able to pick some of the investments my retirement is funding/being funded by then none. Seems crazy to me not researching and picking the investments, but maybe I'm bias by my understanding and intelligence versus the average American.

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