Personal Finance and Investing

And lots of companies never did. And there was, as you've noted, no portability, and sometimes you had to work 25 years or more to finally get the pension. Often you had to be a minimum age, like 25, to even get enrolled.

The truth about pension plans is that even at their peak, fewer than half of all workers were covered. Or ever collected a pension. And in recent years any number of companies have simply walked away from their pension plans, leaving retired workers with no or greatly reduced pensions. I'm one of those.

Too many people just blew off the 401k, didn't put much money in, or put it all in very low-yielding funds.