[ghaff]

There often seems to be an implicit assumption that the money funding defined benefit contributions came from a magic money tree somewhere (or at least did so until it turned out that the tree wasn't producing enough).

I know in the years that I was earning into a deferred benefit plan, I barely gave it a passing thought. And, had you asked me if I would prefer cash or for the equivalent to be funneled into some opaque benefits system that would hopefully pay out someday, I'm pretty sure what I would have chosen.

Are some people better with defined benefits? Almost certainly. But at some point you're being pretty paternalistic to say you should much less must take that option.

[unethical_ban]

There was a time where it was expected, and then it was taken away. Now, we are all slaves to the broader market with no guarantees, where once we had guarantees.

And coincidentally, wealth inequality is unrivaled in modern times.

[ghaff]

Nothing is keeping you from putting some portion of your salary into long-term low-risk bonds or even into annuities of various types. Your total compensation is presumably the same (given tax effects) so you're basically saying that you'd rather an employer handle some portion of your savings for you than handling it yourself. And there have certainly been defined-benefit failures and reductions of various kinds so there were pretty much never any guarantees.

Again, you seem to be assuming that there was some special pool of money that went into defined benefits that got pulled back. Which isn't true. Companies pay what they need to hire including benefits packages.