February 06, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Compensation costs in state and local government up 4.1 percent in 2007

Compensation costs for state and local government workers increased 4.1 percent for the year ended December 2007, the same as for the year ended December 2006.

12-month percent changes in Employment Cost Index, state and local government, December 2002-December 2007
[Chart data—TXT]

For the year ended December 2007, wages and salaries for state and local government workers rose 3.5 percent, also the same as the increase for the 12-month period ended December 2006.

Benefit costs increased 5.5 percent for the 12-month period ended December 2007 compared to 5.2 percent for the previous year.

These data are from the BLS Compensation Cost Trends program. Compensation costs (also known as employment costs) include wages, salaries, and employer costs for employee benefits. For more information, see "Employment Cost Index -- December 2007" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 08-0129. 

 

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