An article published in the Fall 2024 issue of PERSist, the newsletter of the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), which you can access from this page with their permission, discusses the value of the secure path to retirement that DB plans provide for people who are living paycheck to paycheck.

The article covers:

• Statistics on people who are living paycheck to paycheck
• Data on low DC plan balances by age bands and income bands
• A comparison of expected vs. actual retirement ages
• Four aspects of the DB plan advantage

The DC plan “experiment” that has been running for several decades is not going great — especially for those at the lower end of the income spectrum. How can we ask a country largely living paycheck to paycheck to live from an account balance upon retirement that is often nowhere near sufficient?

The most secure form of retirement is a DB plan that pays meaningful benefits with dependability and consistency. Even if workers eventually escape the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, a DB plan is still likely to supply them with the most reliable, consistent and efficient source of retirement income.