Industry News

On February 1, 2022, the MissionSquare Research Institute (formerly the Center for State and Local Government Excellence at ICMA-RC or SLGE) published its issue brief, Benefits of State and Local Government Employees. The brief provided an overview of employee benefits provided to state and local government employees. The research findings indicate that those benefits can help to attract and retain workers as the nation faces unprecedented labor shortages.

According to the Institute, as of March 2021, “there were approximately 18.5 million state and local government employees, across all 50 U.S. states, approximately 39,000 general-purpose local governments, and 51,000 special districts, filling positions in education, utilities, transportation, hospitals, and general administration, among other key responsibilities.”

The findings include:

• 86% of state and local employees have access to a Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan, with 75% participating in the plan.
• Of those with a pension plan, over 90% have required employee contributions at an average of 7.2% of annual earnings.
• 38% have access to a Defined Contribution (DC) plan with 18% participating.
• 89% have access to health care benefits (i.e., medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage) with 78% participating.
• 83% have access to life insurance and 30% have access to long-term care insurance.
• 27% have access to short-term disability benefits and 39% have access to long-term disability benefits.
• Overall, the majority of state and local employees have access to leave benefits, except for paid family leave. For state employees, 25% have access to paid family leave while 98% have access to unpaid family leave. For local employees, 27% have access to paid family leave while 93% have access to unpaid family leave.

The research is based primarily on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Compensation Survey (March 2021), among other national data sources.

The report is available here.