IMHO: "Diss" Ingenuous

Critics have long bemoaned "anemic" participation rates as a sign that the programs aren't working, faulted what were perceived as inadequate savings rates as an indication that participants didn't grasp the need, and pointed to less-than-optimal investment allocations as proof that those who did save were not capable of, or not interested in, making those decisions.  

In fairness, much of that "criticism" has been of a constructive nature—from professionals who care about retirement savings adequacy, who believe strongly in the support of the employer-sponsored system, and who truly want to see people have the opportunity to do the right thing, and to do the right thing with that opportunity.   However, those well-intentioned voices were sometimes employed in contexts that, over time, have hinted (and sometimes done so more overtly) that there were inherent problems with that system that were perhaps beyond remedy.   And there are suggestions, from time to time, that the retirement savings crisis is overblown, a concoction of investment providers and advisers who simply want to ensure their own retirement security.   

More recently—and more insidiously, IMHO—is a growing voice that 401(k)s are little more than tax dodges for the better-off.   That they, like any tax-advantaged program, provide disproportionately higher value to those who actually pay taxes—those who, by definition in our current "progressive" income tax scheme, have higher incomes.  

Alternative Courses

Those opposed to the current employer-sponsored system do have alternatives.   One is to remove the tax benefits from the 401(k) altogether, either as a "fairness" move (e.g., since everyone doesn't have a 401(k), no one should), or that put forth by those trying to establish some fiscal responsibility "cred," is the need to save the federal government money by not deferring taxes on those contributions and/or earnings and by no longer giving employers tax benefits for their contributions on behalf of participants.    Some want to replace the current workplace savings program with something else; generally, some grand government-mandated savings program (yes, in addition to Social Security which, let's tell it like it is, is not a savings program), while those opposed to "Big Government" hold out the notion of a government-sanctioned/mandated payroll IRA, where each worker would have the "opportunity" to set up their own account anywhere they chose to do so.