News release: “Employer provided retirement plans were a common employee benefit in the United States, available to 74 percent of all full-time workers in private industry in March 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. By contrast, 39 percent of part-time private industry workers had access to a retirement
plan. These data are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), which provides comprehensive measures of occupation earnings, compensation cost trends, and incidence and provisions of employee benefit plans. Access to medical care benefits and paid sick leave benefits were provided to 86 and 74 percent of full-time private industry workers, respectively. Only 24 percent of part-time workers had access to medical care and 26 percent to paid sick leave benefits. A worker with access to a medical or retirement plan is defined as having an employer-provided plan available for use, regardless of the workers’ decisions to enroll or participate in the plan.”