2008 Employee Benefits in the United States — 2008-08-07

Two-thirds of private industry and State and local government workers (defined in this survey as civilian workers) had access to retirement benefits and nearly three-quarters to medical care in March 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Access and participation in retirement and medical care benefits were greater in State and local government than in private industry. The data are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), which provides comprehensive measures of occupational earnings, compensation cost trends, and incidence and provisions of employee benefit plans. For the first time, this release includes data on benefits for civilian workers. Farm and private household workers, the self-employed, and the Federal government are excluded from the survey. * Sixty-one percent of private industry employees had access to paid retirement benefits, compared with 89 percent of State and local government employees.