>http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/06/news/companies/boeing-pension/index.html
>
>When will they ever learn...
>
>What's wrong with this? This is how the majority of American workers prepare for their retirement - by contributing to a 401K - but not with all the 401K matching that Boeing is going to provide. Last time I contributed to a 401K plan, I was able to contribute 15% of my income tax free and the employer only matched the first 6% and I considered myself lucky...

"The objective is to provide employees with "attractive" benefits while also curbing the unsustainable growth of Boeing's pension liabilities, according to human resources senior vice president Tony Parasida."

Like many US citizens, you've come to accept the notion that employee-related costs are "unsustainable" at the same time that CEO compensation, corporate profits and large shareholder wealth accelerate exponentially.

You might want to pause and reconsider that.

You also might want to rethink your idea that "This is how the majority of American workers prepare for their retirement" is some kind of justification for that system.

In fact, the gradual shift from employer-funded and managed guaranteed benefit plans to employee-funded and managed guaranteed contribution plans (aka 401K) has been one of the most prodigious rip-offs in the history of US labor relations.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in management fees have been stolen from employees by Wall Street firms who lick their chops every time an employer like Boeing does something like this, while Boeing shifts the entire cost of managing the plan to the employee, often with a tidy markup for itself in the form of reduced costs for other services.

Here's just one example.
http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/retirement-fees/

The smaller plans are even more egregious.