If we could reinvent retirement-saving plans from scratch, how would they differ from the rigid and often paltry 401(k)s that workers have today?

In all sorts of ways.

The reimagined plan, for one thing, would blend the stable income for life of old-fashioned defined-benefit pension plans with the favorable tax treatment of the contemporary 401(k). But unlike those plans, this one would follow participants wherever they work and be universally available, while accommodating the needs of different kinds of savers and protecting participants from their own worst impulses.

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