Whatever happened to decent pensions?

I’m one of the lucky retirees whose pension covers my bills. Apparently we’re a minority these days. How did that happen? Shouldn’t everyone who worked most of their life be entitled to live their alleged “golden years” in dignity? You’d think so. But you’d be wrong. If all you’ve got going on pension-wise is the Old Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan, your maxing out around $2k/month pension income, and that’s only if you religiously paid into those plans during your working years. Lot’s of folks, the self-employed, the precariously employed, and those in the gray economy, never did. I’m not sure how that $2k is supposed to provide a dignified life given the cost of everything now. It can theoretically work for people who bought a house 40 years ago and live mortgage free, but if you had one bad hand in life, such as illness or divorce, you’re screwed, unless you have a private pension. Those were once ubiquitous. Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, most unionized factory jobs offered defined-benefit pensions. That wasn’t something you gave any thought to when you were a 18 year old punk at Budd Automotive. We were convinced we had job security for life, and I recall a UAW slogan, “30 and out,” that was about negotiating a defined-benefit pension after 30 years of service. That would have allowed me to retire with a full pension at age 48! That all seems rather quaint in hindsight. Alas, as the 70s drew to a close, the reactionary politics of Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were on the rise. Union workers were spoiled crybabies who needed to face reality. They were too expensive. And their defined-benefit pensions were simply an outrage. They were an existential threat to the very capitalist system that underpinned our way of life, and indeed, democracy itself! Defined-benefit gave way to the defined contribution pension plan. That’s if you were fortunate enough to have any pension plan at all. Defined-benefit pensions became extinct in the private sector, but persist in the public sector. Why is that? Anti-union propaganda wants you to believe it’s because unions are too powerful. The reality is the public sector unions generally represent workers whose jobs can’t be offshored. You can’t scare teachers or cops or civil servants by threatening to send their jobs to Mexico or China, unlike manufacturing jobs. I had the dumb luck to snag a teaching career just as the tide was going out in Canada’s industrial sector. Scored a defined-benefit pension just as Budd and GE and a bunch of other union shops I’d worked in were closing up and shifting work offshore. I can afford to pay my bills and live life. The ranks of those who can’t are ever growing. Poverty, housing precarity, marginalization are their lot in life. Groceries from the food bank and a sleeping bag under a bridge are not much of a reward for folks who’ve done their best to be productive citizens for 65 years or more. It’s not that we couldn’t afford to help them; it’s just that we have limited resources and must prioritize our priorities… F-35s, warships, nuclear submarines, Ukraine…