Access to retirement, medical benefits better for government workers then private sector.(Brief article)

State and local government workers have more access to retirement benefits and medical care than workers in the private sector, according to a study recently released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Department of Labor.

The data, gathered for the National Compensation Survey (NCS) in March, indicate that 89 percent of state and local government employees had access to paid retirement benefits, and 87 percent had medical care benefits available. That compares with 61 percent of private-sector workers who had access to paid retirement benefits, and about 71 percent who had access to medical care benefits.

Overall, two-thirds of U.S. workers had retirement benefits and almost three quarters had access to medical care.

The NCS provides comprehensive measures of occupational earnings, compensation cost trends, and incidence and provisions of employee benefit plans. The survey did not include farm and private household workers, self-employed workers, or federal government workers.

The report is available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs2. nr0.htm.

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