pb4uski
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
The "annuity" which a pension provides is not the same as those that you would pay hefty fees on if you go in to the market and purchase directly on your own.
Yes, it is an annuity product. However, the employer is paying a good portion of the fees to the administrator (e.g. Fidelity) and it is usually on a large scale that those fees are low when spread over the number of participants. Further, Fidelity, or other administrator is not employing salespeople taking commissions - which contribute to much of the fees in other annuity products.
Actually, not all pension plans buy an annuity to cover benefits payments... many just make the benefit payments from the plan's assets. That is arguably better because an annuity from an insurer would be priced to cover overhead, taxes and profit/return on capital in addition to benefits.