December 20, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Benefits vary somewhat by region

The incidence of employee benefits varied by establishment location in 1999, although differences were generally small. Coverage tended to be higher in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and the West, although the differences were not consistent.

 

[Chart data—TXT]

Fifty-three percent of workers in the Northeast and Midwest were covered by retirement benefits, compared with 47 percent in the West and 43 percent in the South. Workers in the West enjoyed the highest incidence of fully paid medical care benefits, for both single and family coverage. Workers in the Northeast were the least likely to have fully employer-paid single coverage, and workers in the South had the lowest incidence of fully employer-paid family coverage.

Paid vacation benefits were fairly uniform across the regions, while paid holidays were slightly more common in the Northeast than in the other regions. Paid sick leave was less prevalent in the Midwest, whereas short-term disability coverage was much more prevalent in the Northeast, in part because it is mandated in New York and New Jersey.

These data are produced by the Employee Benefits Survey. Get more information on the incidence of benefits from "Employee Benefits in Private Industry," news release USDL 01-473.