Employee Benefits Statistics (2026)

In March 2025, 72% of private industry workers had access to retirement benefits and 72% had access to medical care plans.

Among all civilian workers, 82% had access to paid sick leave, 77% to paid vacation and 80% to paid holidays.

Those headline numbers are the least interesting part of this dataset, because the variation underneath them is far larger than the averages suggest.

70% of private industry workers had access to a defined contribution plan. Only 14% had access to a defined benefit pension.

The pension survives almost entirely at scale: 36% of workers at establishments with 500 or more had access, against 13% at 100 to 499 and 6% at establishments under 100.

So for most private-sector workers, retirement income is now something they have to fund and invest themselves, which is the single largest shift in this dataset over the past four decades.

Retirement access ran 59% at establishments under 100 workers, 86% at 100 to 499, and 90% at 500 or more.

The same gradient appears in every other benefit. Short-term disability went 31%, 53%, 68%. Life insurance went 42%, 72%, 87%. Dental care went 30%, 50%, 70%.

Childcare shows the widest relative gap: 8% at establishments under 100 workers against 30% at 500 or more.

72% of private industry workers had access to a medical plan but only 45% participated in one.

That gap is not indifference. It is mostly part-time work and premium cost. Full-time private industry workers had 87% access with a 65% take-up rate, while part-time workers had 25% access with a 42% take-up rate.

The same pattern appears in the public sector: 99% of full-time state and local government workers had retirement access and 88% participated, against 44% access and 38% participation for part-time workers.

Among civilian workers in the lowest-paid 10%, 43% had access to paid sick leave and 43% to paid vacation.

Among the highest-paid 10%, the same figures were 96% and 85%.

The effect is compounding rather than merely unequal: the workers least able to absorb an unpaid day off are the ones most likely to have to take one.

State and local government workers had far better paid sick leave than private industry workers, at 93% against 80%.

They had considerably worse paid vacation and holidays, at 61% and 68% against 80% and 81%.

The explanation is teachers. Only 22% of civilian teachers had access to paid vacation and 14% in state and local government, because the school calendar substitutes for it. It is a reporting artefact rather than a worse deal.

Access to paid sick leave for private industry workers ranged from 55% in leisure and hospitality to 97% in both information and in finance and insurance.

Hospitals sat at 95% and elementary and secondary schools at 94%.

Leisure and hospitality is also the industry with the highest concentration of part-time and lowest-paid work, so the industry gap and the wage gap are largely the same gap seen from two angles.

Childcare benefits reached 13% of private industry workers. Student loan repayment assistance ran from 3% among the lowest-paid quarter to 13% among the highest-paid quarter.

Wellness programmes reached 28% of workers at establishments under 100 workers and employee assistance programmes 40%. Subsidised commuting reached 6%.

These are the benefits that get the most attention in recruiting copy and the least coverage in the actual data, and the wage gradient on student loan help is worth noticing: the benefit is concentrated where it is least needed.

Among state and local government workers in public administration with medical plans, employers paid 89% of premiums for single coverage and 78% for family coverage.

The average flat monthly premium paid by employers was $748.60 for single coverage and $1,719.45 for family coverage.

That employer share is the reason employer coverage remains the dominant form of health insurance in the US even when the sticker premium is high.

Access to nonproduction bonuses among private industry workers ranged from 37% for service occupations to 58% for management, professional and related occupations.

That is a narrower spread than most benefits show, but it compounds differently: a bonus is variable pay on top of a higher base, so the dollar gap is far wider than the access gap.

It is also the part of compensation most exposed to a downturn, which matters for anyone budgeting on total pay rather than base pay.

The benefit package at a large employer is worth a meaningful fraction of salary, and the gap is largest exactly where it is hardest to replace privately: a defined benefit pension, subsidised family medical premiums, and disability cover.

Retirement access is the one to check first, because a 401(k) with a match is the only part of compensation that comes with an immediate guaranteed return.

Short-term disability at 31% access in small establishments is the most commonly overlooked gap, since it is the benefit that covers the risk of not being able to work at all.

Every figure is from the BLS National Compensation Survey release Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2025, published 25 September 2025 as USDL-25-1464, and its tables 1 through 6.

Access means the employer offers the benefit. Participation means the worker takes it. The take-up rate is participation divided by access, and the release reports all three separately.

Civilian workers means private industry plus state and local government. Federal government workers are excluded from the civilian series.