DH and I both work at a company with both a traditional defined benefit pension program and a 401k (though newly arriving employees don't get into the DB pension anymore).

It's a huge part of our decision-making process not only for retiring, but also whether to leave and work somewhere else. Even if I retire in my late 40s, the pension would give me about $1,400 a month starting at 65. Obviously not enough to live on, but a nice supplement to a well-funded 401k and to social security.

And if I kept working until 65, the pension would be about $4k a month.

Anonymous wrote:I was a kid in Pittsburgh in the 1970s and saw what happened to pensions when the corporate raiders got done sucking the blood out of the steel industry. I wouldn't trust the empty promises.

PBGC was created in response to what happened in the steel industry and provides some protection. A remaining risk is that companies car significantly reduce the pension plan in the years before bankruptcy/PBGC intervention.

DH has a pension and we are planning for it up to the max you get from the PBGC- which tops out at ~$54k at the moment. Even if the company goes bankrupt, the pension is insured.

I was a kid in Pittsburgh in the 1970s and saw what happened to pensions when the corporate raiders got done sucking the blood out of the steel industry. I wouldn't trust the empty promises.

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I'm vested in my pension, but at this point, I could leave my job and it would provide something like $4,000/year. Obviously I'm not counting on it for anything. Not counting on social security either. hopefully the market will improve so my 401K does better than it has been over the last 10 years.

Honestly, I'm counting on working till I'm 65 or 70 and hoping I won't live too long after that. I prefer the idea of having a nice heart attack while running at 72 to living till 90 and rotting in an assisted living home as a burden on my kid.