Yeah this isn't accurate.

The PA pension fund isn't invested just in "stocks" there are a wide mix of investments (bonds, real estate, various hedge funds) designed to be profitable even in a market downturn. Not that profitability matters because it's a defined benefit program meaning your payout does not change no matter how much money is actually in the fund.

The way the pension works is also MUCH different than your 401k because the pension cannot be exhausted no matter how old you live to be. Your 401k is only worth what's in there and drawing down the principal (say, for a significant health incident, or needing to make withdrawals in a down market year) will deplete it.

The state pension system allows the recipient not only to receive a yearly tax exempt salary (which was the average of your three highest years when I was still there) for the rest of their lives, but also has the option to pass that yearly payment on to a dependent, though with a slight reduction in payout. So you could retire at 65, receive payouts until 90, then your child would ALSO begin receiving that payout until they die of old age.

Is that possible with your 401k? Not really. You'd have to get phenomenally lucky with your investment to guarantee that kind of draw for 100 years straight.

And for what it's worth, states are sovereign entities (unlike municipalities or territories) and cannot declare bankruptcy ever, per the US Constitution. No matter how bad the state's finances are, they are legally bound to pay that pension out as agreed to, because discharging the debt in bankruptcy isn't legally possible.

The US would have to dissolve as an entity or rewrite the constitution before that happened. Market crashes can and do happen. Total collapse of the United States not so much.

No one in their right mind would take a 401k over a defined benefit program like a state pension for that reason. Though for what it's worth state employees have access to a "hybrid" 401k program that mixes features of the legacy pension program, not a true 401k. The only advantage is that it's cheaper for the state to administer because a 401k style program pays out way less money than a pension does.

Source: former state HR manager for the Commonwealth, current private sector HR executive.