How does your organization’s hourly wage and benefit expenditure stack up to the national average? You can find out by comparing your costs to the most recent Employer Costs for Employee Compensation report (March 2006) from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly compensation cost per civilian nonfarm worker averaged $26.86, with salaries accounting for just over 70 percent of the total, and benefits accounting for just under 30 percent. Workers compensation represented 1.8 percent of the hourly expenditure, a rate that has held steady since at least 1998. Health benefits have increased significantly. According to the report, “the average cost for health benefits was $1.72 per hour worked in private industry (6.9 percent of total compensation) in March 2006. In March 2001, employer costs for health benefits averaged $1.16, or 5.6 percent of total compensation.”
The following breaks down the hourly cost for a civilian worker by the dollar amount and percent of each specific cost component.
Component … Cost … Percent
Total compensation … 26.86 … 100.0
Wages and salaries … 18.82 … 70.1
Total benefits … 8.04 … 29.9
Paid leave … 1.88 … 7.0
– Vacation … 0.88 … 3.3
– Holiday … 0.62 … 2.3
– Sick … 0.29 … 1.1
– Other … 0.10 … 0.4
Supplemental pay … 0.67 … 2.5
– Overtime and premium … 0.24 … 0.9
– Shift differentials … 0.06 … 0.2
– Nonproduction bonuses … 0.37 … 1.4
Insurance … 2.18 … 8.1
– Life … 0.05 … 0.2
– Health … 2.05 … 7.6
– Short-term disability … 0.05 … 0.2
– Long-term disability … 0.04 … 0.1
Retirement and savings … 1.15 … 4.3
– Defined benefit … 0.72 … 2.7
– Defined contribution … 0.44 … 1.6
Legally required benefits … 2.16 … 8.0
– Social Security and Medicare … 1.51 … 5.6
– Federal unemployment insurance … 0.03 … 0.1
– State unemployment insurance …0.15 … 0.5
– Workers’ compensation … 0.47 … 1.8
The report includes detailed breakdowns for specific industry segments. Other related reports and custom reports are available at National Compensation Survey – Compensation Cost Trends.
