April 28, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Employers costs for Medicare,
workers' compensation rise from 1966-98
Employer costs for employee benefits include
"legally-required benefits", those employer obligations that have been enacted
in State or Federal law. Such benefits include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment
insurance, and workers’ compensation. In 1998, the share of all compensation that
went to these legally-required benefits was 8.2 percent, up from 5.1 percent in 1966.
[Chart data—TXT]
From 1966-1998, Social Security was the legally-required benefit with the highest cost
to employers. The share of total compensation going to Social Security rose from 2.8
percent in 1966 to 4.7 percent in 1998. However, the overall share of legally-required
benefit costs represented by Social Security was relatively stable—54.9 percent in
1966, compared to 56.4 percent in 1998.
In recent years, workers’ compensation and Medicare have taken up a greater
proportion of employers’ legally-required compensation costs, while the share for
unemployment insurance has declined. Unemployment insurance accounted for 21.6 percent of
legally-required compensation in 1966, but only 7.9 percent in 1998. In contrast, the
portion of legally-required benefits that pays for workers’ compensation rose from
17.6 percent in 1966 to 21.5 percent in 1998, and that for Medicare rose from 5.9 percent
to 14.1 percent over the same period.
Data on employer costs for legally-required benefits and other compensation are
available from the BLS Employment Cost Trends
program. For additional information, see "Tracking Changes in Benefits
Costs" (PDF 46K), Compensation and Working Conditions, Spring
1999.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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