Employee Benefits in the United States Technical Note

                                              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.

Employee Benefits data: The Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2023 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/ebs/publications/annual-benefits-summary.htm for the latest benefits publications. 
Historical estimates are also accessible in Excel format at 
www.bls.gov/ebs/publications/xlsx/employee-benefits-in-the-united-states-dataset.xlsx and through the database 
query tool at www.bls.gov/ebs/data.htm.  

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/ebs/technical-notes/standard-errors.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.

Civilian workers: Statistics for private industry and state and local government are published separately and 
then combined to measure the civilian economy. Excluded from the civilian economy are workers employed in 
federal government and quasi-federal agencies, military personnel, agricultural workers, volunteers, unpaid 
workers, individuals receiving long-term disability compensation, and those working overseas. In addition, 
private industry excludes workers in private households, the self-employed, workers who set their own pay (e.g., 
proprietors, owners, major stockholders, and partners in unincorporated firms), and family members paid token 
wages.

Leave benefits for teachers: Primary, secondary, and special education teachers typically have a contracted 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 care premiums: The estimates for medical care premiums are not based on actual decisions regarding medical
coverage made by employees; instead, it is assumed 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.

Sample rotation: One-third of the private industry sample had been rotated each year except in years when the 
government sample was replaced. Beginning with the March 2022 publication, however, an additional (fourth) private 
industry sample is used in estimation to mitigate the impact of decreasing response rates. 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.

Classification system: The National Compensation Survey publishes estimates of compensation costs
and trends as well as benefit coverage by ownership, industry group, occupational group, and geographic areas, see 
www.bls.gov/eci/factsheets/national-compensation-survey-classification-systems-mapping-files.htm.


Sample size:

Appendix table 1. Survey establishment response(1), March 2023
Establishments	Civilian	Private industry	State and local governments
Total in sampling frame(2)	7,161,550	6,930,620	230,930
Total in sample	14,720	13,120	1,600
Responding(3)	8,420	6,990	1,430
Refused(4)	5,260	5,120	140
Out of business or not in survey scope	1,040	1,010	30
Footnotes: (1) The number of establishments are rounded to the nearest 10. Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. (2) The sampling frame was developed from state unemployment insurance reports and is based on the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). With some minor exceptions, an establishment is a single economic unit that engages in one, or predominantly one, type of economic activity. For private industry, the establishment is usually at a single physical location such as a mine, factory, office, or store; if a sampled establishment is owned by a larger entity with many locations, only the employment and characteristics of the establishment selected for the sample are considered for the survey. For state and local governments, an establishment can include more than one physical location, such as a school district or a police department. (3) Establishments that provided data at the initial interview. (4) Establishments that did not provide data at the initial interview. For information on nonresponse adjustment and imputation, see the Handbook of Methods: National Compensation Measures available at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/ncs/home.htm.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey.

Survey scope:

Appendix table 2. Number of workers represented(1), March 2023
Occupational group(2)	Civilian workers	Private industry workers	State and local government workers
All workers	145,300,100	126,227,200	19,072,900
Management, professional, and related	46,834,300	35,920,600	10,913,700
Management, business, and financial	14,624,400	13,126,900	-
Professional and related	32,209,900	22,793,700	9,416,200
Teachers	7,014,300	-	5,112,800
Primary, secondary, and special education school teachers	5,035,900	-	3,988,300
Registered nurses	3,077,300	-	-
Service	32,036,200	28,053,300	3,982,900
Protective service	3,565,300	1,621,500	1,943,800
Sales and office	31,030,400	28,453,800	2,576,600
Sales and related	13,076,400	12,996,900	-
Office and administrative support	17,954,000	15,456,900	2,497,000
Natural resources, construction, and maintenance	11,591,700	10,777,800	813,900
Construction, extraction, farming, fishing, and forestry	6,090,400	5,643,000	-
Installation, maintenance, and repair	5,501,200	5,134,900	-
Production, transportation, and material moving	23,807,500	23,021,700	785,800
Production	9,087,500	8,965,000	-
Transportation and material moving	14,720,000	14,056,700	-
Footnotes: (1) The numbers of workers represented by the survey are rounded to the nearest 100. For information on weighting, see the Handbook of Methods: National Compensation Measures available at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/ncs/home.htm. (2) The 2018 Standard Occupational Classification system was used to classify workers.
Note: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. Dashes indicate that no estimates for this characteristic are provided in this publication. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey.

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 2023 wages and salaries from
the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation publication at www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ecec_06162023.pdf.

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:


Ownership	Average hourly wage percentiles
	10th	25th	50th	75th	90th
	10th	25th	(median)	75th	90th
Civilian	$14.00	$17.12	$23.55	$37.02	$56.06
Private industry	$14.00	$17.00	$22.57	$35.64	$55.29
State and local government	$16.50	$21.50	$31.68	$44.10	$59.80

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 articles 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/ebs/publications/annual-benefits-summary.htm. The latest glossary of benefit terms is available at
www.bls.gov/ebs/publications/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/ebs/data.htm.

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Last Modified Date: September 21, 2023