Pension and retirement security

There is a book called “Coming up Short”, by Alicia Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Following are some of the author’s observations:
1) The role for Social Security benefits is getting smaller; Medicare premiums are increasing, and [employee and government-sponsored] pensions are disappearing – all these make will make the retirement of younger workers far more difficult than those of current and past retirees.
2) Fewer workers can expect to receive pensions from their employer, but it is possible to create your own.
3) Just convert some of your retirement savings into a lifetime annuity.
4) Studies show that a single person without a pension, has about a 75 percent chance of outliving her assets. With a pension, the odds go down to about 25 percent.