Summary

Description

The National Compensation Survey (NCS) is an annual survey of the incidence and provisions of selected benefits provided by employers. The survey collects data from a sample of approximately 18,000 private sector and State and local government establishments. The data are presented as a percentage of employees with access to employee benefit programs and for some benefits, percentage of employees who participate in them. The estimates on detailed provisions include numeric values (such as dollars, percents, or years), and some of them are presented as positional statistics or as mean and median values. The survey covers paid leave benefits such as holidays and vacations, personal, jury duty, military, family (both paid and unpaid), and sick leave; short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance; medical, dental, and vision care plans; defined benefit pension and defined contribution plans. Data on such quality of life benefits as childcare and flexible workplace are also available. Data are tabulated on the incidence of financial benefits, such as health savings account and Section 125 cafeteria benefits. In recent years, data on common benefit combinations have been added; these are medical care and paid leave added to other benefits.