Living pay check to pay check?

The characters featured in this film are all high level executives yet apparently are living a pay check to pay check existence with no reserve funds. Some of them are close to retirement age yet appear to have been living at the very edge of their income and even beyond. Only the CEO seems to have planned well and is cashing out with $600 million in stocks.
The premise of the film just seems to be flawed. Also, if in fact these guys did spend every dollar they made and even cashed in their stock options along the way as well, they deserve no sympathy. They had their chance and blew it. In particular, the Woodward character. He is close to retirement age and has not prepared for it. Actually, he would already be vested in the corporation retirement program. All he needed was enough in reserve to bridge the time till retirement age. Instead, he commits suicide. Term life insurance does not pay off for suicides. If he had whole life insurance, it would have had a cash value available without committing suicide. If he had no life insurance, shame on him.
With "Company Men" like this, I am surprised the company had not gone broke even in a booming economy. But actually, the film makes little sense with regard to the characters featured.

But there is a strikingly real visual that almost vindicates the film. The shots of the empty decaying factories and massive shipping facilties. It more than anything else shows what has happened to the US economy. And indirectly, the jobs lost by the thousands of people who worked there and many other places like it.