For many companies, it was as though they were being required to work solely for the benefit of past and future pensioners.
But with 246,000 retirees drawing pensions now and 339,000 future pensioners on the workforce, those annual supplements add up.
The demise of final salary or defined benefit schemes will have a grim effect on future pensioners' finances.
It will be a considerable challenge to ensure that future pensioners are not left disgruntled about decisions they have made in respect of contracting out.
This $4.2 billion unfunded liability is just supposed to cover cost-of-living increases for current and future pensioners.
Which is exactly what Brown did, taking from future pensioners in order to fund current expenditure.
The Pension Service is a dedicated service for current and future pensioners.
He also said that no one had lost benefits but that future pensioners could if the missing money is not recouped.
By reducing the pension return rate, the government helped shore up the insurance companies' bottom line, but at a cost to future pensioners.
What would happen if the long-term savings of future pensioners were engulfed in a stock-market crash?