But I have to imagine in a lot of cases that would lead to people being impoverished later in life, which is not especially humane.
secondly, its just an intergenerational wealth transfer. another excess of the selfishness of the boomer generation. Who will pay the price ... the school kids getting a crap education in 35 student classrooms in crumbling buildings in a towns who's infrastructure is going to literally fall apart in 2 decades time from zero maintenance. Ah well at least we kept the promises some corrupt politicians made in the 90s to well-off gov workers.
It's compensation earned in exchange for labor under a negotiated agreement. The fact that the check is separated from the labor by years rather than days doesn't suddenly make it "an entitlement."
The time to complain about entitlement, selfishness, and intergenerational wealth transfer was when we were promising those pensions, not now that the bills are due.
If I live twice as long my 401k doesn't magically double.
How do you feel about annuities? They can function very much like a pension. Why do you think most people choose not to buy them?
Anyway, the crux of the problem its very difficult walk the line of having institutions that safely guarantee massive financial payouts 50+ years into the future. From the perspective of the seller its an asymmetric risk. We can't even accurately predict the yield on government bonds 5 years from now.
The logical thing would be to phase in mandatory 401k contribution and healthcare savings accounts with fixed amount in high-rated bonds. But that might put a dent in the ability of Coca-Cola/Disney/Comcast Co. to suck the American consumer dry so its probably a no-go in our political environment.