National Compensation Survey

Employee Benefits in the United States

July 28, 2009
About 70 percent of workers in private industry had access to employer provided medical care benefits in March 2009. Only 25 percent of the lowest wage earners received such benefits, compared to the 90 percent of the highest wage earners. More...
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Employment Cost Index (ECI)

July 31, 2009
Total compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March to June 2009. For the year ended June 2009, compensation costs rose 1.8 percent with both components of compensation--wages and salaries and benefits--each rising 1.8 percent. More...
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Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC)

June 10, 2009
Employers spent an average of $29.39 per hour worked for civilian compensation in March 2009. Wages and salaries averaged $20.49, and benefits averaged $8.90. Health insurance was the largest individual benefit cost at $2.37 per hour, which accounted for 8.1 percent of total compensation costs. More...
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Current NCS News Releases

• Employment Cost Index (ECI) (HTML) (PDF)
• ECI Archives - Complete set of ECI news releases from 1976.
• Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (HTML) (PDF)
• ECEC Archives - Complete set of ECEC news releases from 1986.
• Employee Benefits in State and Local Government, September 2007 (HTML) (PDF)
• Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2008 (TXT) (PDF)
• Occupational Pay Comparisons Among Metropolitan Areas (HTML) (PDF)
• Subscribe to the BLS News Service—receive the Employment Cost Index news release and other major economic indicators by e-mail.
• NCS Regional News Releases
• ECI Regional News Releases

Databases

Database Name	Special Notice	Top Picks	One Screen	Multi- Screen	Tables	Text Files
Tutorials: For help, try these tutorials.
Pay
National Compensation Survey
Pay & Cost of Benefits
Employment Cost Index
Employer Cost for Employee Compensation
Benefit Incidence & Provisions
Employee Benefits Survey

More Tools

• Series Report —Already know the series identifier for the statistic you want? Use this shortcut to retrieve your data.

• Flat files (FTP) —For those who want it all. Download a flat file of the entire database or large subset of the database.
  • Wages (NCS)
  • Employment Cost Trends (ECT)
  • Benefits (EBS)

• National Compensation Search--allows you to search through all the National Compensation Survey publications that are currently available electronically.

All NCS Databases »

• ECI Current-Dollar Historical Listings
• UPDATED NAICS basis (TXT) (PDF 310K)
• SIC basis (TXT) (PDF 573K)
• ECI Constant-Dollar Historical Listings
• UPDATED NAICS basis (TXT) (PDF 244K)
• SIC basis (TXT) (PDF 241K)
• ECI Standard Errors
• ECEC Historical Listing, 2004 to present (Quarterly)-Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (TXT) (PDF 821K) -- Quarterly estimates from March 2004 to the present, with sample establishments classified by industry categories based on the new 2002 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and the 2000 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system.

All NCS Tables »

Wages

• National Summary
• National Bulletin, July 2007
• National Bulletin, June 2006
• Census Divisions
• Localities
• NCS Supplemental Tables

• Occupational Pay Relatives

• Archives

• Indexes (ECI)
• Cost levels (ECEC)
• Archives

• Retirement Benefit Estimates for State and Local Government Workers, 2007 - Summary
• Employee Benefits in State and Local Governments, Summary, September 2007
• Employee Benefits in Private Industry, Summary, March 2007
• Employee Benefits in Private Industry
• Medium and Large Establishments
• Small Establishments
• State & Local Governments
• Archives

• Using Wage Data from the National Compensation Survey (PDF 284K)
• NCS: Guide for Evaluating Your Firm's Jobs and Pay.
• NCS:A Guide for Respondents
• OCWC Customer Service Guide
• Glossary of Compensation Terms
• Glossary of Employee Benefit Terms (PDF)
• Occupation Classification Manual
• Health Insurance Definitions
• Online Publication
• Compensation and Working Condition (CWC) Online
• Monthly Labor Review (MLR) Online

All NCS Publications (including benefits, compensation costs, and wages) »

People Are Asking...

1. How prevalent are cash account (cash balance) pension plans?
2. Are more workers covered by indemnity plans or HMOs?
3. Can employees typically choose how their 401(k) funds are invested, and how often can those funds be invested in company stock?
4. What is a floor-offset plan?
5. How can I get NCS wage data?
6. What benefits data do you have?
7. Do you have data on compensation costs or employment cost trends?
8. What kinds of collective bargaining agreements are maintained?

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the NCS?
2. What are the differences between NCS occupational wage data and the Bureau's Occupation Employment Statistics Survey (OES) wage data?
3. How are occupations chosen and why?
4. How can you compare areas with differing mixtures of jobs?
5. Will data be available for the entire U.S.? What about regional data?
6. How can an employer use NCS data to set pay?
7. What areas do you survey?

All NCS FAQs »

Related Links to Other BLS Programs

• Employment Cost Trends—quarterly indexes measuring change over time in labor costs and quarterly data measuring level of average costs per hour worked.
• Benefits—comprehensive data on incidence and provisions of selected employee benefit plans.
• Occupational Employment Statistics—data on employment and wages for over 800 occupations and for about 400 nonfarm industries for the nation, plus occupational data for States and metropolitan areas.
• Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages —comprehensive employment and wage data by industry and geographic area for workers covered by State Unemployment Insurance laws.
• Occupational Outlook Handbook—provides data for 250 occupations, by nature of the work, working conditions, employment, job outlook and earnings, related occupations, sources of additional information, and training, other qualifications, and advancement.
• Collective Bargaining Agreements—data on major work stoppages (lockouts and strikes) and a file of collective bargaining agreements.

Other Useful Links

• Employment Standards Administration—administers a variety of programs protecting the basic rights of workers, including minimum wage and hour standards, and equal employment opportunity.
• Employee Benefit Research Institute—offers a detailed description of private- and public-sector employee benefit programs as they exist today.

Contacts

The Office of Compensation Levels and Trends, Branch of Survey Information and Publications, will be glad to assist you with questions about any of the components of the National Compensation Survey.

Email: Contact us

Telephone: (202) 691-6199 (Monday - Friday, 8:30 A.M. - 4:30 P.M.)

Question-by-FAX: (202) 691-6647

Information and assistance is also available from any BLS regional office.

Information voice phone: (202) 691-5200 The Federal Relay Service: 1-800-877-8339

Write or Personal Visit

Federal Depository Libraries provide free access to government documents. Many of these libraries receive BLS publications. Check with a location near you.

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