Except it drives the wrong behaviour.  Just because many people are over-extending themselves (Household debt to income ratio is around 160%) and not fully taking advantage of those retirement tools (excluding those truly without the means, and maybe those with gold plated government DB pensions), doesn't mean all is rosy.  More than a few of them are wholly unprepared for retirement, and those that are shouldn't be penalized because big government is pretending the save the rest of them from themselves.