Readers React: Can we finally admit that moving away from pensions was a mistake?

To the editor: I still remember back in the 1980s when our nation started abandoning pensions. I was fresh out of law school and working in a big legal office. At an employee meeting, we were told that our pension system would be ending and personal retirement accounts would be instituted instead. (“Too poor to retire and too young to die,” Jan. 29)

The older lawyers were aghast. They understood that the stock market was the rich man’s casino. The stakes were rigged against the common man, and he couldn’t expect to succeed in it. In answer to these complaints, we were told that these personal accounts were a fine example of our American “choice.”

Thirty years later, we have stagnant wages, whole industries crushed and entire cities decimated by economic collapse. Yet somehow we were individually supposed to have been able to set aside $1.5 million for our retirement.

Most people are retiring with less than $25,000 saved. For the next three decades, we will see an entire generation of Dolores Westfalls roaming our neighborhoods in a dire state of crisis.

Isn’t it time that we declare the 401(k) to be a failed social experiment?

Cheryl Holt, Burbank

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To the editor: The plight of Westfall, depicted in this article, is heartbreaking. What’s truly sad is that her story is not unique.

More and more, the end game for the elderly is poverty. This often comes by way of poor health and low income.

My mother is 94 and requires caregiver assistance around the clock. The only thing standing between her and a situation even worse than that of Westfall is … me.

Jackie Naiditch, Altadena

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To the editor: It was heartbreaking to read the struggles that Westfall encounters on a daily basis.

America is going through tough times and every generation is facing challenging and frightening times, but those from my generation born in the late 1960s need to step up and make sure the people who raised us, educated us and took care of us when we were young are taken care of now.

If Westfall can make it to La Quinta, she has a free room with a comfortable bed at my house if she can tolerate living with four kids, a wife and a lazy Labrador that never gets off the couch.

Americans take care of other Americans; this is what makes our country so great.

Kevin Riordan, La Quinta

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