Nakia McKenzie, VP of compensation and benefits at AARP, knows her company has one perk she thinks puts it in a particularly attractive light: It’s one of the few organizations to still offer a pension.
In 2019, just 14% of Fortune 500 companies offered a defined benefit plan (like a pension) to new hires, according to Willis Towers Watson. That’s down from 59% among the same group of employers back in 1998. Last year, just a quarter of civilian workers were offered a traditional pension plan, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. AARP is one of them, which McKenzie said doesn’t instantly strike Gen Zers as very important.
