[Winona Online Democracy] Hello all, This is my first posting to online democracy, I guess I was inspired by yesterdays face-to-face meeting. It was nice to meet many of you, we should do it again. Anyway I have been interested in the increase in total compensation (salary + benefits) that has occured in past decade for workers in the U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides a fairly comprehensive overview of total compensation, salary, and benefits on a quarterly basis. In March 2000 they released to reports that summarize total compensation etc. broken down by employment area, region of country, union vs. non-union, and private industry vs. government. These are available at the following web address in PDF format under the New Releases section. Look at both the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) and Employment Cost Index (ECI) reports. http://stats.bls.gov/ecthome.htm More complete information on the ECI by occupation type can be found by going the links in the Data section. Some interesting articles written by researchers on the employment costs etc. can be found in the Monthly Labor Review Archives which can be accessed via the following link: http://stats.bls.gov/ectartic.htm ============================================================================= Here are some selected highlights from these reports that I found interesting. >From the March 2000 ECEC report...... All Civilian Workers $21.16/hr. ($15.36 salary + $5.80 benefits) White Collar Occup. $25.66/hr. ($18.91 salary + $6.75 benefits) Prof Spec/Tech $36.85/hr. ($25.59 salary + $8.85 benefits) Nurses $30.28/hr. ($22.04 salary + $8.24 benefits) Pub. Elem&2nd Teach $31.23/hr. ($23.13 salary + $8.10 benefits) Pub. High Ed. Teach $34.18/hr. ($25.17 salary + $9.00 benefits) Blue Collar Occup. $19.73/hr. ($19.73 salary + $7.22 benefits) Service Occup. $11.90/hr. ($8.77 salary + $3.13 benefits) Construction $23.75/hr. ($16.45 salary + $7.44 benefits) Manufacturing $23.74/hr. ($16.84 salary + $6.91 benefits) Fin, Ins., Real Est. $28.50/hr. ($20.30 salary + $8.20 benefits) These are just a sampling of the occupational groups reported in the ECEC March 2000 report. ====================================================================== The Employment Cost Index (ECI) is used to track percent changes in total compensation costs over time. When it was first calculated for all occupation codes they created base index of 100 which represented the average total compensation in June 1989 for each employment group. Thus compensation increases for nurses are measured relative to an index of 100 which represents the average total compensation for all nurses in June 1989. The same for teachers, their compensation increase is measured relative to an index of 100 which represented the average compensation for teachers in June 1989. This is a flaw in my opinion because compensation inequities that may have existed in June 1989 are lost! Regardless, the ECI does allow for easy computation of percent increases in total compensation over time. Using a base index of 100 for each occupation here are some percent increases in total compensation from June 1989 to March 2001. All Civilian Workers 52.3% White Collar Occup. 55.6% Prof Spec/Tech 53.2% Nurses/Hosp Staff 53.2% Pub. Elem&2nd Teach 48.5% Pub. High Ed. Teach 53.7% Blue Collar Occup. 48.2% Service Occup. 52.0% Construction 48.2% Manufacturing 51.3% Fin, Ins., Real Est. 57.9% Banking,S&L,Cred. Ag. 70.8% Tranportation 45.4% Communications 58.3% Elec.,Gas, Sanitation 56.0% Again there is much more info in the ECI report and the Monthly Labor Review articles related to employee compensation. Sorry for the length post, I promise I'll keep the next one shorter ;) Brant Deppa Brant Deppa, Ph.D. Associate Professor Dept. of Statistics and Mathematics Winona State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: course1.winona.msus.edu/bdeppa ---------------- This message was posted to the Winona Online Democracy Project. Please visit http://onlinedemocracy.winona.org to subscribe or unsubscribe. Please sign all messages posted to this list with your actual name. Posting of commercial solicitations is not allowed on this list. Report problems to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
