Paid leave benefits continued to be the most widely available benefit offered by employers, with paid vacations available to 91 percent of full-time workers in private industry in March 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Access to these benefits, however, varied by employee and establishment characteristics.

In private industry, paid vacation benefits were available to only 37 percent of part-time workers. Paid sick leave was available to 75 percent of full-time workers and 27 percent of part-time workers. Paid vacations were available to 90 percent of workers earning wages in the highest 10th percent of private industry employees and only to 38 percent of workers in the lowest 10 percent of private industry wage earners. Access to paid sick leave benefits ranged from 21 percent for the lowest wage category to 87 percent for the highest wage category. These data are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), which provides comprehensive measures of compensation cost trends and incidence and provisions of employee benefit plans.

For unmarried domestic partner benefits, about half the workers in state and local government have access to survivor benefits, as compared to 7 percent of the workers in private industry, reflecting in part the difference in the availability of defined benefit plans between these groups. Thirty-three percent of state and local government workers and 29 percent of private sector workers have access to health care benefits for unmarried domestic partners of the same sex. Access to benefits varies by employer and employee characteristics and by whether the unmarried domestic partner is of the same or opposite sex.

Additional findings include:

* Sixty-four percent of all private industry employees had access to retirement benefits, compared with 90 percent of state and local government employees. Eighty-five percent of state and local government employees actually participated in a retirement plan, compared with 49 percent of private industry workers.

* Medical care benefits were available to 69 percent of private industry workers, compared with 87 percent among state and local government workers. About half of private industry workers participated in a medical plan, compared with about three-quarters of state and local government workers.

* Full-time workers in state and local government had a high rate of access to employer-provided benefits. Retirement and medical benefits were offered to 99 percent and paid sick leave to 98 percent of full-time workers. By comparison, only 73 percent of full-time employees in private industry had access to retirement benefits, 85 percent to medical care, and 75 percent to paid sick leave.

* For single coverage, employers paid 88 percent of the medical care premiums for full-time state and local government workers and 80 percent of the medical care premiums for full-time private industry workers. For family coverage, employers paid 71 percent of the medical care premiums for full-time workers in state and local government and 69 percent in private industry.

* Paid sick leave was available to approximately two-thirds of workers. Nearly 9 out of 10 state and local government workers had access, compared with approximately 6 of 10 private industry workers.