For release 10:00 a.m. (ET) Thursday, September 24, 2020                                             USDL-20-1792

Technical information:  (202) 691-6199    ncsinfo@bls.gov    www.bls.gov/ebs
Media contact:          (202) 691-5902    pressoffice@bls.gov

                        EMPLOYEE BENEFITS IN THE UNITED STATES – MARCH 2020

Paid sick leave was available to 75 percent of private industry workers in March 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Labor 
Statistics reported today. (See table 6.) Among industries, access to paid sick leave ranged from 52 percent of
workers in leisure and hospitality to 93 percent of workers in financial activities and information.

Seven percent of private industry workers had access to flexible workplace benefits. These benefits were available
to 1 percent of workers in the lowest 25th percent wage category and 18 percent of workers in the highest 25th
percent wage category. 

Flexible work schedules were available to 13 percent of private industry workers. Eight percent of workers in the
lowest 25th percent wage category and 26 percent of workers in the highest 25th percent wage category had access. 

Medical care benefits were available to 89 percent of state and local government workers. Employers paid 86 
percent of medical care premiums for single coverage plans and 71 percent for family coverage plans. The average
flat monthly premium paid by employers for state and local government workers was $576.34 for single coverage and
$1,235.07 for family coverage. (See tables 2-4.) 
 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
|		Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Impact on March 2020 Benefits Data			|
| The Employee Benefits in the United States reference date was March, 2020. No changes in estimation	| 
| procedures were necessary due to COVID-19. Additional information is available at 			|
| www.bls.gov/covid19/employee-benefits-covid19-effects-march-2020.htm.					|
|_______________________________________________________________________________________________________|

Seventy-eight percent of civilian workers had access to paid sick leave and an average of 8 annual paid sick leave
days were available to workers across all years of service. Paid vacations were available to 76 percent of 
civilian workers. On average, 11 paid vacation days were available annually to workers after 1 year of service and
20 days were available to workers after 20 years of service. (See table 6.)

Short-term disability benefits were available to 40 percent of civilian workers and 39 percent of workers                  
participated in the benefit, resulting in a 98 percent take-up rate. The take-up rate is the percentage of workers
with access to a plan who participate in the plan. Employee contributions were not required for 85 percent of 
workers with short-term disability. 

Long-term disability benefits were available to 35 percent of civilian workers. Ninety-four percent covered by 
long-term disability plans were not required to make contributions. 

The take-up rate for life insurance was 98 percent. Ninety-five percent of employees covered by life insurance 
were not required to make contributions. (See table 5.) 

Private industry workers 
  * Paid holidays were available to 96 percent of management, business and financial workers and paid vacation 
    days were available to 97 percent of these workers. 
  * Within education and health services, 24 percent of workers in educational services had access to vacation 
    days through a consolidated leave plan and 67 percent of workers in health care and social assistance had 
    access to consolidated leave plans.
  * Medical care was available to 27 percent of workers in the lowest 10th percent wage category and 94 percent of
    workers in the highest 10th percent wage category had access to this benefit. 
  * Sixty-seven percent of workers in an establishment with less than 100 employees had access to paid sick leave
    and 88 percent of workers at establishments with 500 or more employees had access to paid sick leave. 

State and local government workers 
  * Seventy-six percent of workers participated in defined benefit plans. Forty-five percent of these workers 
    participated in open defined benefits plans and 55 percent participated in frozen defined benefit plans that
    continued to accrue benefits. 
  * Eighteen percent of workers participated in defined contribution plans and employee contributions were 
    required for 69 percent of these workers. 
  * Ten percent of workers had access to paid sick leave through a consolidated leave plan and 89 percent of 
    workers with paid sick leave had a fixed number of sick days each year. 
  * Medical care and retirement benefits were not available to 1 percent of primary, secondary, and special 
    education school teachers and 99 percent of these workers had access to both benefits. 

Civilian workers 
  * Paid family leave was available to 21 percent of workers and unpaid family leave was available to 89 percent
    of workers.
  * Retirement benefits, which include defined benefit and defined contribution plans, were available to 67 
    percent of nonunion workers, while 94 percent of union workers had access to retirement benefits.  
  * Student loan repayment, or tuition forgiveness programs, was available to 2 percent of workers in the lowest
    10th percent wage category and 9 percent of workers in the highest 10th percent wage category had access to
    these programs. 
  * Forty-one percent of opposite sex unmarried domestic couples were able to provide healthcare benefits for 
    their partners and 44 percent of same sex unmarried domestic couples had access to these healthcare benefits. 

Additional March 2020 and historical estimates are available through the database query tool at
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/data.htm and additional tables are available in an annual bulletin at 
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2020. 

                                        TECHNICAL NOTE

Estimates in this release are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), conducted by the U.S. Department of
Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The NCS provides comprehensive measures of compensation cost levels and
trends and also provides benefits incidence estimates on the percentage of workers with access to and
participating in employer-provided benefit plans.

The Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2020 bulletin includes additional details on the coverage, 
costs, and provisions of employer-sponsored benefits, and will be published shortly after this news release. See
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits for the latest benefits publications. The bulletin includes the following tables:

-	Table 1: Establishments offering retirement and healthcare benefits (private industry only)
-	Tables 2 – 8: Retirement benefits
-	Tables 9 – 15, 41: Healthcare benefits
-	Tables 16 – 30: Insurance benefits
-	Tables 31 – 38: Leave benefits
-	Table 39: Quality of life benefits
-	Tables 40, 42: Financial benefits
-	Table 43: Unmarried domestic partner benefits
-	Tables 44, 45: Benefit combinations

Standard errors: Measures of reliability are available for published estimates, which provide users a measure of
the precision of an estimate to ensure that it is within an acceptable range for their intended purpose. For 
further information see www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/nb_var.htm.

Comparing private and public sector data: Incidence of employee benefits in state and local government should not
be directly compared to private industry. Differences between these sectors stem from factors such as variation in
work activities and occupational structures. Manufacturing and sales, for example, make up a large part of private
industry work activities but are rare in state and local government. Administrative support and professional 
occupations (including teachers) account for two-thirds of the state and local government workforce, compared with
one-half of private industry.

Leave benefits for teachers: Primary, secondary, and special education teachers typically have a work schedule of
37 or 38 weeks per year. Because of this work schedule, they are generally not offered vacations or holidays. In
many cases, the time off during winter and spring breaks during the school year are not considered vacation days
for the purposes of this survey.

Medical plan premiums: The estimates for medical plan premiums are not based on actual decisions regarding medical
coverage made by employees; instead they are based on the assumption that all employees in the occupation can opt
for single or family coverage. Monthly premiums are collected when possible. Annual premiums are converted to
monthly premiums by dividing by 12 months. The share of premiums paid by employers and employees include workers
with and without a contribution requirements.

Sample rotation: One-third of the private industry sample is rotated each year except in years when the government
sample is replaced. The government sample is replaced less frequently than the private industry sample. The state
and local government sample was replaced in its entirety for the March 2017 reference period.

Sample size:

Survey scope:

Average hourly wage percentiles: Estimates by worker average wage are grouped into six wage categories- the lowest
10 percent, the lowest 25 percent, the second 25 percent, the third 25 percent, the highest 25 percent, and the
highest 10 percent. The categories use percentile values based on unpublished March 2020 wages and salaries from
the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation publication.

The percentiles are computed using hourly wages and salaries along with scheduled hours of work reported for 
individual workers in sampled establishments. Establishments in the survey are asked to report only individual 
worker wages and salaries for each sampled job. For the calculation of the percentile values, the individual
worker hourly wages and salaries are weighted and arrayed from lowest to highest. The values corresponding to the
percentiles are:

The lowest 10- and 25-percent wage categories include those occupations with an average hourly rate less than the
10th percentile value and 25th percentile value, respectively. The second 25-percent category includes those 
occupations with rates at or above the 25th percentile value but less than the 50th percentile value. The third
25-percent category includes those occupations with rates at or above the 50th percentile value but less than the
75th percentile value. Finally, the highest 25- and 10-percent wage categories include those occupations with an
average hourly wage greater than or equal to the 75th percentile value and 90th percentile value, respectively.

Individual workers can fall into a wage category different from the average for the occupation into which they are
classified because average hourly wages for the occupation are used to produce the benefit estimates.

Obtaining information: For articles on employee benefits, see the Monthly Labor Review benefits section at 
www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/subject/b.htm and Beyond the Numbers: Pay and Benefits at
www.bls.gov/opub/btn/archive/home.htm. The Economics Daily article archive is available at
www.bls.gov/opub/ted/employee-benefits-survey.htm. For technical information, see "National Compensation 
Measures," in the BLS Handbook of Methods at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/ncs/home.htm.

Benefit publications from 1980 to the present are also available at www.bls.gov/ncs/ncspubs.htm. The 
latest glossary of benefit terms is available at 
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/national-compensation-survey-glossary-of-employee-benefit-terms.htm. In addition,
the public databases may also be used to obtain data from 1985 to 2006 and 2010 to the present, see
www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/data.htm.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request.
Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.