2015 Employee Benefits in the United States — 2015-07-24

Retirement benefits were available to 66 percent of private industry workers in the United States in March 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employer-provided retirement benefits were available to 31 percent of private industry workers in the lowest wage category (the 10th percentile). By contrast 88 percent of workers in the highest wage category (the 90th percentile) had access to retirement benefits. In state and local government, 61 percent of workers in the lowest wage category had access to retirement benefits, compared with 98 percent of workers in the highest wage category. (See chart 1 and table 1.) The share of premiums workers were required to pay for their medical coverage varied by bargaining status. Private industry nonunion workers were responsible for 23 percent of the total single coverage medical premium, whereas the share of premiums for union workers was 13 percent.