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.

The Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2022 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 March 2022 Excel tables present 2022 
estimates of the incidence and key provisions of employer-sponsored benefits for civilian workers, private 
industry workers, as well as state and local government workers by worker and establishment characteristics, and
geographic areas. Each Excel sheet includes the following tables:

-	Table 1: Retirement benefits
-	Table 2: Health benefits 
-	Table 3: Medical care benefits
-	Table 4: Life insurance benefits 
-	Table 5: Short-term disability benefits
-	Table 6: Long-term disability benefits
-	Table 7: Leave benefits 
-	Table 8: Other benefits

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 care premiums: The estimates for medical care 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.

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. As the sample is partially rotated each year and sample weights are 
updated for the reference period based on the Current Employment Statistics, the estimates are not considered a 
time-series.

Sample size:

Appendix table 1. Survey establishment response(1), March 2022
Establishments	Civilian	Private industry	State and local governments
Total in sampling frame(2)	6,927,610	6,697,060	230,550
Total in sample	14,720	13,130	1,600
Responding(3)	8,870	7,450	1,430
Refused(4)	4,750	4,610	140
Out of business or not in survey scope	1,100	1,070	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 2022
Occupational group(2)	Civilian workers	Private industry workers	State and local government workers
All workers	139,921,100	121,010,600	18,910,600
Management, professional, and related	44,937,400	34,109,600	10,827,800
Management, business, and financial	13,713,500	12,204,600	-
Professional and related	31,224,000	21,905,100	9,318,900
Teachers	6,864,200	-	5,066,600
Primary, secondary, and special education school teachers	4,778,000	-	3,862,900
Registered nurses	2,851,400	-	-
Service	30,447,300	26,549,400	3,897,900
Protective service	3,383,200	1,480,300	1,902,900
Sales and office	33,461,300	30,823,200	2,638,100
Sales and related	13,126,700	13,050,000	-
Office and administrative support	20,334,600	17,773,200	2,561,400
Natural resources, construction, and maintenance	11,312,700	10,517,000	795,700
Construction, extraction, farming, fishing, and forestry	5,787,100	5,354,000	-
Installation, maintenance, and repair	5,525,600	5,162,900	-
Production, transportation, and material moving	19,762,400	19,011,300	751,100
Production	8,928,600	8,808,800	-
Transportation and material moving	10,833,800	10,202,600	-
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 2010 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 2022 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:


Ownership	Average hourly wage percentiles
	10	25	50	75	90
	10	25	(median)	75	90
Civilian	$13.09	$16.21	$22.36	$35.29	$53.52
Private industry	$13.00	$16.00	$21.50	$33.77	$52.88
State and local government	$15.42	$20.23	$30.11	$42.30	$57.69

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.

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Last Modified Date: September 22, 2022