Abstract
What are the hourly wages for part-time janitors in San Diego? Are vision coverage benefits prevalent among large employers in the Northeast? How does a 5% pension plan cost compare with other small establishments? Questions like these illustrate the information you might seek and find in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) new National Compensation Survey (NCS). For the first time ever, the BLS will provide in one single vehicle statistically valid, comprehensive, and interrelated data on levels, trends and characteristics of wages and employee benefits for all American workers.
While compensation surveys are not new-the BLS has conducted them since its inception in the late 19th century-several events in the early 1990s exposed the inefficiencies of the existing survey design and led to the development of this new survey. First begun by the BLS in 1994, the NCS will have a complete sample and will begin to produce a complete set of outputs by the year 2001. The NCS survey data are available online at http:/ /stats.bls.gov.
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