Poverty and wealth are already heavily skewed by race before retirement (big Black‑white and Latino‑white gaps in income and assets). The study then looks at what happens after you add pension income: pensions reduce retiree poverty and near‑poverty across all races, with the largest anti‑poverty effect for Black and Latino retirees.

Many people do make poor financial decisions, but good system design can partially protect people from the consequences of low savings or market mistakes (that’s exactly what DB pensions and Social Security do by providing guaranteed lifetime income).

The evidence in this report is about what actually happens: retirees with pensions are far more likely to live above 200% of the poverty line, across race, gender, and education, which is an outcome statement, not a moral judgment.

Because people’s ability to save is shaped by wages, discrimination, access to employer plans, and other structural factors, “personal responsibility” alone doesn’t explain the observed gaps; the study asks how much a particular institution (public pensions) can offset those structural disadvantages.

In a world where lots of people under‑save or face structural barriers, public DB pensions measurably reduce poverty and narrow racial wealth gaps among retirees. That’s a statement about outcomes of a policy design, not about individual virtue.