Would You Give Up Some Pay for More Retirement Security?

You deserve a raise. You also deserve more retirement security.

If you had to choose between the two, and you're between 18 and 34, odds are you'd trade some of your pay today for greater retirement security in the future, a new survey says.

It seems odd. Aren't young people loaded down with student loans and plagued by expensive housing? Some 65 percent of millennials surveyed by EY (aka Ernst & Young) and the Economic Innovation Group said "they did not make enough money to cover expenses or are living paycheck to paycheck." And aren't they focused on experiences—and not the experience of living in drudgery while they save all their pennies for old age?

Yes and yes. Still, 60 percent of those 18 to 34 in a Willis Towers Watson survey of more than 5,000 workers said they would forgo some of their pay if it meant a more secure retirement. That's up from 42 percent when the same survey was taken in 2009.