BLS Tracks Small Changes in Retirement Benefits Access

In March 2025, 72% of private industry workers had access to retirement benefits, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Employee Benefits in the United States Summary,” published September 25. The proportion remains the same as what the BLS reported one year prior.

For state and local government workers, access to retirement benefits remained the same (92%), but participation dropped by one percentage point.

Among private industry workers, 59% of workers in establishments with fewer than 100 employees, 86% of workers in organizations with 100 to 499 workers, and 90% of workers in companies with at least 500 workers had access to retirement benefits. The proportion of workers in each employer-size category who gained access to retirement benefits grew one percentage point, dropped two percentage points and remained the same, respectively, since last year—marking only slight changes across the gamut of employer sizes.

But this year, access to retirement benefits improved for part-time state and local government and private industry workers: 44% of part-time state and local government workers had access to retirement benefits, up one percentage point from last year. The proportion of those workers participating in the plans offering those benefits grew one percentage point as well, year over year, to 38% from 37%.

The same proportion (47%) of part-time private industry workers had access to retirement benefits as last year, but the participation rate increased by one percentage point, and the take-up rate—calculated from the unrounded percentage of workers with access to a plan and who participate in the plan—rose two percentage points.

Access, participation and take-up rates for medical care benefits of private and state and local government employees remained the same as last year. In private industry, access to medical benefits improved by one percentage point for service occupations but fell by the same amount for management, professional and related occupations; and among natural resources, construction and maintenance occupations, as well as transportation and material moving occupations, fell by two percentage points.

State and local government employees’ access to medical benefits improved by one percentage point for those in protective service occupations, as well as natural resources, construction and maintenance operations; and declined by one percentage point for sales and office occupations. Participation and take-up rates declined for teachers (by one and two percentage points, respectively) and for the category of production, transportation and material moving occupations (by three and four percentage points). Participation and take-up increased by one percentage point for natural resources, construction and maintenance operations, as well as for service occupations.

Data in the “Employee Benefits in the United States Summary” derive from BLS’ National Compensation Survey. Respondents included private businesses and state and local government jurisdictions representing about 126.9 million private industry workers and about 20 million state and local government workers. The survey is updated quarterly, and the employee benefits summary is published annually in September, using data from March.