Technical Note

Estimates in this bulletin are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This publication contains 2016 estimates on detailed employer-provided retirement plan provisions for state and local government workers in the United States. Excluded are federal government workers. Previous publications containing information on employee benefits for civilian, private industry, and state and local government workers are available on the BLS website: www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs.

Survey scope and method

Information on the survey scope, sample design, data collection, estimation, reliability of estimates, and technical references are available in Chapter 8 of the BLS Handbook of Methods, www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch8.pdf. Definitions of major plans, key provisions, and related benefit terms used by the National Compensation Survey are provided in the Glossary of Employee Benefit Terms, available online at www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/glossary20162017.htm. For information on survey establishment response and on the number of workers represented by the survey, see Appendix tables 1 and 2, respectively.

Appendix Table 1 (TXT) (PDF)
Appendix Table 2 (TXT) (PDF)

Calculation details

For data presented by wage category, average hourly earnings from sampled occupations within an establishment were used to produce estimates for worker groups within six earnings categories: the lowest 10 percent, the lowest 25 percent, the second 25 percent, the third 25 percent, the highest 25 percent, and the highest 10 percent. The categories are based on March 2016 wages and salaries from the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, available online at www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ecec_06092016.pdf.

The percentiles were computed using earnings reported for individual workers in sampled establishment jobs and their scheduled hours of work. Establishments in the survey are asked to report only individual worker earnings for each sample job. For the calculation of the hourly percentile values, the individual worker hourly earnings are weighted and arrayed from lowest to highest. The values corresponding to the percentiles are as follows:

Characteristics	Hourly wage percentiles
Characteristics	10	25	50 (median)	75	90
State and local government workers	$12.70	$16.71	$24.20	$35.99	$49.79

The lowest 10-percent and 25-percent wage categories include those occupations with an average hourly wage less than the 10th percentile value and 25th percentile value, respectively. The second 25-percent category includes those occupations that make at or above the 25th percentile value but less than the 50th percentile value. The third 25-percent category includes those occupations that make at or above the 50th percentile value but less than the 75th percentile value. Finally, the highest 25- and 10-percent wage categories include those occupations with an average wage value greater than or equal to the 75th and 90th percentile value, respectively.

(Note: Individual workers can fall into an earnings category different from the average for the occupation into which they are classified because average hourly earnings for the occupation are used to produce the benefit estimates.)

Not determinable estimates

Some tables in this bulletin contain columns with estimates classified as "not determinable." Situations that result in this classification can vary. In detailed provisions of employer-provided retirement plans, the "not determinable" classification is used whenever no information on a particular plan feature is available from the Summary Plan Description (SPD). The SPD is used as a primary source of information on the provisions of a retirement plan. For example, in table 1, workers are classified as participating in defined benefit plans open to new employees and not open to new employees (frozen plans). Workers that were known to participate in a defined benefit plan, but whether the plan was open or closed to new employees was not specified, were classified into the "not determinable" category.

Interpreting the tables

All estimates shown in the table are based on the set of workers specified underneath the table title and on any subsets indicated by column headers. For example, the statement may indicate that “All workers participating in traditional defined benefit plans = 100 percent” or “All workers participating in savings and thrift plans with a specified matching percent = 100 percent.”

Most of the estimates in this bulletin are expressed in terms of the percentage of workers participating in a particular benefit plan or the percentage covered by a specific provision. Some estimates, however, provide values other than percentages of workers, such as the median age requirement for eligibility to participate in a defined benefit retirement plan or the specified matching percent (by percentile) an employer will contribute to an employees’ savings and thrift retirement plan. Estimates in the non-shaded columns generally indicate percentages of workers. Estimates in shaded columns measure values other than the percent of workers.

Geographic areas

The census regions are defined as follows:

Northeast: New England and Middle Atlantic
South: South Atlantic, East South Central, and West South Central
Midwest: East North Central and West North Central
West: Mountain and Pacific

The census divisions are defined as follows:
New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont
Middle Atlantic: New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania
South Atlantic: Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia
East South Central: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee
West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
East North Central: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
West North Central: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota
Mountain: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
Pacific: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington

Additional information

For research articles on employee benefits, see the Monthly Labor Review at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr, Beyond the Numbers: Pay and Benefits at www.bls.gov/opub/btn, and The Economics Daily at www.bls.gov/opub/ted.

Last Modified Date: April 11, 2017