Technical Note
Data in this release are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), conducted by the U.S.
Department of Labors Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This release contains March 2008 data
on civilian, private industry, and State and local government workers in the United States.
Under the NCS program, information on the incidence and provision of benefits is published in
several stages. This news release provides data on the incidence of (access to and participation
in) selected benefits and share of premiums paid by employers and employees for medical care.
An extensive number of web-only tables on the incidence of selected benefits will be available
in the late summer of 2008. Data on detailed provisions of health insurance benefits in private
industry will be published in 2009. Previous publications containing information on employee
benefits for private industry and State and local government workers are available on the
BLS website http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs.
Calculation details
Averages for occupations within an establishment were used to produce estimates for worker
groups averaging hourly pay within the six earnings percentiles: Below the 10th percentile, 10th
to under the 25th percentile, 25th to under the 50th percentile, 50th to under the 75th
percentile, 75th to under the 90th percentile, and the 90th percentile and greater. Individual
workers can fall into an earnings category different from the average for an occupation and
establishment into which they are classified. The percentile breakouts are based on the average
wage for each occupation surveyed, which may include workers both above and below the threshold.
The percentile values are based on wages to be published in the upcoming "National Compensation
Survey: Occupational Earnings in the United States, 2007," U.S. Department of Labor, June
2008, bulletin 2704. The tables on employer and employee medical premiums (tables 3 and 4)
include participants in all medical plans, with calculations for both single and family coverage.
The calculations are not based on actual decisions regarding medical coverage made by employees
within the occupations. Rather, the premium calculations are based on the assumption that all
employees in the occupation have identical coverage. Values corresponding to the percentiles
used in the tables are as follows:
Characteristics Hourly wage percentiles
10 25 50 75 90
(median)
Civilian workers $8.00 $10.57 $15.70 $24.47 $36.15
Private industry workers $7.85 $10.13 $15.00 $23.25 $34.79
State and local government workers $11.00 $14.45 $20.68 $30.39 $41.66
Take-up rates
Take-up rates are the percentage of workers with access to a plan who participate in the
plan. They are computed by using the number of workers participating in a plan divided by the
number of workers with access to the plan, times 100 and rounded to the nearest one percent. Since
the computation of take-up rates is based on the number of workers collected, rather the rounded
percentage estimates, the take-up rates in the tables may not equal the ratio of participation
to access estimates.
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 vacation or holidays.
In many cases, the time off during winter and spring breaks during the school year is not considered
vacation days for the purposes of this survey. However, many teachers are offered personal days
of leave that are captured in the survey.
Survey scope
The March 2008 NCS benefits survey represented about 127 million civilian workers; of this
number, about 107 million were private industry workers and 19 million, State and local government
workers (see Appendix table 2). For purposes of this study, a private establishment is an
economic unit that produces goods or services, a central administrative office, or an auxiliary
unit providing support services to a company. For private industries, the establishment is
usually at a single physical location. For State and local governments, an establishment is
defined as an agency or entity such as a school district, college, university, hospital, nursing
home, administrative body, court, police department, fire department, health or social service
operation, highway maintenance operation, urban transit operation, or other governmental unit.
It provides services under the authority of a specific State or local government organization
within a defined geographic area or jurisdiction. The survey sample weights were adjusted to
reflect the March 2008 employment figures from the Current Employment Statistics survey.
The nine census divisions are defined as follows: New England--Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont; Middle Atlantic--New Jersey, New York, and
Pennsylvania; East North Central--Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin; West North
Central--Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota; South
Atlantic--Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia; East South Central--Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and
Tennessee; West South Central--Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas; Mountain--Arizona,
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming; and Pacific--Alaska, California,
Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.
Sample design and data collection
The sample for this survey was selected by using a 3-stage design. The first stage involved
the selection of areas. The NCS State and local government sample consists of 152 areas that
represent the Nations 361 metropolitan statistical areas and 573 micropolitan statistical areas,
as defined by the Office of Management and Budget in December 2003, and the remaining portions
of the 50 States. The private industry sample consists of 151 metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan
areas that represent the Nations 326 metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) in 1994 and the remaining portions of the 50 states. Nonmetropolitan
areas are counties and other geographic designations that do not fit the metropolitan area
definition.
In the second stage, the sample of establishments was drawn by first stratifying the sampling
frame by industry and implicitly by establishment size. The list of establishments from which the
survey sample was selected was developed from State unemployment insurance reports and is based on
the 2007 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
The third stage of sample selection was the drawing of a probability sample of occupations
within a sampled establishment. Identification of the occupations for which data were to be
collected was a 4-step process:
1. Probability-proportional-to-size selection of establishment jobs
2. Classification of jobs into occupations based on the 2000 Standard Occupational
Classification (SOC) system
3. Characterization of jobs as full time vs. part time, union vs. nonunion, and time versus
incentive
4. Determination of the level of work of each job
For additional technical information, see the BLS Handbook of Methods, available online at
http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/home.htm.
Definition of terms
Civilian workers. Private industry and State and local government workers.
Full-time worker. Any employee whom the employer considers to be full time.
Part-time worker. Any employee whom the employer considers to be part time.
Nonunion worker. An employee in an occupation not meeting the conditions for union coverage.
Union worker. Any employee is in a union occupation when all of the following conditions are met:
* A labor organization is recognized as the bargaining agent for all workers in the occupation.
* Wage and salary rates are determined through collective bargaining or negotiations.
* Settlement terms, which must include earnings provisions and may include benefit provisions,
are embodied in a signed, mutually binding collective bargaining agreement
Survey estimation methods
The survey design uses an estimator that assigns the inverse of each sample units probability
of selection as a weight to the units data at each stage of sample selection and four weight
adjustment factors. The first factor adjusts for establishment nonresponse and the second factor
adjusts for occupational nonresponse. The third factor adjusts for any special situations that may
have occurred during data collection. The fourth factor, poststratification, also called benchmarking,
is introduced to adjust the estimated employment totals to actual counts of employment by industry
for the survey reference date.
For additional technical information, see the BLS Handbook of Methods, available online at
http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/home.htm.
Reliability of estimates
The statistics in this summary are estimates derived from a sample of usable occupation quotes
selected from the responding establishments. They are not tabulations based on data from all
employees in establishments within the scope of the survey. Consequently, the data are subject
to sampling and nonsampling errors.
Sampling errors are the differences that can arise between results derived from a sample and
those computed from observations of all units in the population being studied. The sample used for
this survey is one of a number of possible samples of the same size that could have been selected
using the sample design. Estimates derived from the different samples would differ from one another.
A measure of the variation among these differing estimates is the standard error. It can be
used to measure the precision with which an estimate from a particular sample approximates the
expected result of all possible samples. The chances are about 68 out of 100 that an estimate from
the survey differs from a complete population figure by less than the standard error. The chances
are about 90 out of 100 that this difference would be less than 1.6 times the standard error.
The statements of comparison appearing in this publication are significant at a 1.6 standard
error level or better. This means that for differences cited, the estimated difference is greater
than 1.6 times the standard error of the difference. Standard errors can be used to evaluate
published series. To assist users in ascertaining the reliability of series, the standard errors
for all estimates are available on the BLS Web site http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs.
Nonsampling errors also affect survey results. They can be attributed to many sources, such as
the inability to obtain information for some establishments, difficulties with survey definitions,
inability of the respondents to provide correct information; or mistakes in recording or coding
the data obtained. Although they were not specifically measured, the nonsampling errors were
expected to be minimal due to the extensive training of the field economists who gathered the
survey data, computer edits of the data, and detailed data review.
Survey response
The March 2008 benefits survey included a sample of 14,890 establishments. The definitions in
Appendix table 1 are as follows:
Responding. The establishment provided information on at least one usable occupation. An occupation
is classified as usable if the following data are present: occupational characteristics (full- vs.
part-time schedule, union vs. nonunion status, and time vs. incentive pay type), work schedule and
wage data.
Refused or unable provide data. The establishment did not provide earnings, occupational
classification, worker characteristics, and work schedule data for any occupation.
Out of business or not in survey scope. The establishment is no longer in operation, following a
bankruptcy, for example. Establishments not in the survey scope include farm and private households,
the self-employed, the Federal government, and locations of an establishment out of the sampled
area. Also excluded are establishments with no workers within the survey scope (if all employees
are also owners, for example).
Obtaining information
For research articles on employee benefits, see the Monthly Labor Review or Compensation and
Working Conditions Online at the BLS Web sites http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/home.htm and
http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/home.htm. For more detailed information on the NAICS and SOC
classification systems, including background information, see the BLS Web sites
http://www.bls.gov/bls/naics.htm and http://www.bls.gov/soc/home.htm.
Additional information about the NCS may be obtained by calling (202) 691-6199. You may also
write to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Division of Compensation Data Analysis and Planning,
2 Massachusetts Ave., NE, Room 4175, Washington, D.C. 20212-0001, or send e-mail to NCSinfo@bls.gov.
The data contained in this summary are also available on the BLS Internet site:
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs. Users may access benefits data from previous surveys through a
variety of tools available on the same page. Material in this summary is in the public domain
and, with appropriate credit, may be reproduced without permission. This information will be
made available to sensory-impaired individuals upon request. Voice telephone: (202) 691-5200;
Federal Relay Service: 1-800-877-8339.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
