What’s New in Insights and Insights+

We’re excited to share the latest updates to Insights and Insights+ for 2026. Each year, we take partner feedback and turn it into meaningful improvements to our benchmarking tools, and this year is no exception.  

This year’s enhancements reflect exactly what you’ve been asking for: more granular benchmarking options, expanded coverage across emerging benefit areas, and deeper comparisons that strengthen your client conversations. These aren’t just new features; they’re tools designed to help you win more business, advise with greater confidence, and support every recommendation with the most accurate data available.  

We’re proud of these new enhancements, and we’re just getting started. There’s much more coming throughout the year as we continue investing in making Insights and Insights+ the most powerful benchmarking resources available.

Here’s what’s new:

Insights+

•  More granular employer size benchmarking options, expanding from the previous size groupings (100–499 and 500+) to:
  
  • 100–249
    
  • 250–499
  • 500–999
  • 1,000+
• New 3-tier and 4-tier rate + contribution benchmarking
  
  • 4-tier: Employee / Employee + Spouse / Employee + Children / Employee + Family
  • 3-tier: Employee / Employee + Dependent / Employee + Family
• View Insights+ reports directly inside your portal, making it easier to navigate, analyze, edit, and share instantly with colleagues and clients.

• AI-Powered Benefits Assistant — You can now ask plain-language questions about your clients' benefits data and reports directly getting instant, accurate answers without digging through pages of data manually.  

• The Benefits Award is now part of every Broker's Toolkit
  
  • After watching thousands of employers earn recognition through the program, we decided the award should be a standard part of every broker's toolkit. If your client qualifies, the badge and core award components are now available to instantly download, share, and celebrate with your client.

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Insights

• Expanded benchmarking for alternative benefit delivery methods, including:
  
  • Firm-paid through reference-based pricing
  • Narrow network plans
  • Direct primary care (DPC)
  • Specialty provider networks
• New data visibility into waiting periods
• New menopause care reporting
• Ancillary lines split into dedicated pages for clearer benchmarking and navigation:
  
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Disability
  • Life Insurance
• Carrier market share visibility added to each page
  
  • Shows top carriers by market share based on the selected region
• New dental benchmarking metric: orthodontia (ortho) maximums
• New vision benchmarking metric: percentiles for max reimbursement
  
  • Lenses
  • Contacts
• New disability benchmarking detail
  
  • STD elimination period shown in days
  • LTD elimination period shown in days
• New retiree benefit reporting
  
  • Medicare Advantage (MA) retiree benefit availability
  • Whether MA resulted in lower cost per retiree

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Hiring has never been cheap. But for many organizations today, it has quietly become far more expensive than traditional recruiting metrics suggest.

Most companies track time-to-fill and cost-per-hire. These metrics are familiar, easy to report, and widely benchmarked. What they don’t capture is the full organizational cost of an open or recently filled role — and how benefit perception, retention, and productivity are deeply tied to that number.

When recruiting effort, productivity loss, onboarding time, and early turnover risk are fully considered, the true cost of hiring for professional roles often reaches $80,000 to $90,000 per hire. For many HR and finance leaders, that figure is surprising. The reality is that most hiring models are incomplete by design.

Why Traditional Cost-Per-Hire Models Underestimate Hiring Costs

Cost-per-hire calculations typically focus on direct expenses. Recruiter fees, job advertising, background checks, and onboarding costs are straightforward to track and easy to justify in a budget review.

The problem is that these line items represent only a fraction of the total impact.

The largest drivers of hiring cost tend to be indirect and dispersed across the organization. Extended vacancies delay output. Teams redistribute work, creating burnout and inefficiency. Managers spend time filling gaps instead of driving strategic initiatives. New hires take months to reach full productivity. And roles filled under pressure carry a higher likelihood of early turnover.

When these factors are included, organizations frequently underestimate the true cost of hiring by 30 to 50 percent. The impact rarely appears as a single expense line. Instead, it shows up as slower execution, missed growth opportunities, and persistent retention challenges.

Time-to-Fill Is a Compounding Business Cost

Time-to-fill is often treated as a static recruiting metric — something to optimize, but not something that actively accumulates cost. In reality, every day a role remains open increases organizational drag.

Across industries, typical time-to-fill ranges look like this:

• Administrative roles: 20–40 days

• Professional and technical roles: 40–60 days

• Senior leadership roles: 60–90+ days

During that time, work doesn’t disappear. Output is delayed or redistributed. Overtime increases. Manager attention shifts away from growth initiatives. Team velocity slows. These effects compound quietly, making vacancies far more expensive than they appear on paper.

Once a role is filled, the cost accumulation doesn’t stop. Onboarding and ramp-up often extend the total time-to-productivity window to 90 to 180 days. Until that point, teams continue to operate below capacity.

This is how a role with a $120,000 salary can translate into an $80,000 or greater organizational cost, even before factoring in turnover risk.

Early Turnover Magnifies Hiring Costs

Turnover inside the first 12 months is one of the most expensive and least visible hiring failures. The costs are rarely isolated or formally reported, yet the impact is significant.

When an employee leaves early, the organization absorbs:

• The full recruiting cost again

• Another vacancy period

• A second ramp-up cycle

• Lost institutional knowledge

• Reduced team morale

Early turnover effectively doubles many of the hidden costs associated with hiring. It also creates skepticism around recruiting effectiveness, even when the underlying issue isn’t talent quality.

In many cases, the root cause isn’t compensation or role mismatch. It’s misaligned expectations and poor understanding of total rewards.

Benefits Play a Bigger Role in Retention Than Most Companies Realize

Benefits consistently rank as the second most important reason employees stay with or leave an employer, yet they are one of the most misunderstood components of total compensation.

Research shows that employees undervalue their benefits by nearly 50 percent. When employees don’t understand the value of what they receive, even strong benefit plans fail to influence retention, recruiting conversations, or offer acceptance decisions.

This disconnect has tangible consequences. Employees who underestimate their benefits are more likely to explore external opportunities. Candidates hesitate during offer negotiations. Hiring cycles lengthen. Time-to-fill increases.

None of this requires increasing benefit spend. It requires credible context.

Why Total Compensation Statements Rarely Change Behavior

Most organizations rely on total compensation statements to communicate benefits value. While well-intentioned, these statements often fail to change perception or behavior.

The reason is simple: information alone does not create credibility.

Employees are not asking how much their employer spends. They are asking whether their benefits are competitive compared to peers. Without external context, internal summaries and dollar totals feel abstract and unconvincing.

Effective benefits communication requires three elements:

• Peer-aligned benchmarks

• Independent validation

• Clear, easy-to-understand scoring

Without these, even objectively competitive plans are perceived as average, or worse.

The Problem With Most Benefits Benchmarking

Many employers attempt to solve this gap with benchmarking. Unfortunately, most benchmarking tools introduce new problems.

Broker-aligned benchmarks reflect the book of business they support. Carrier-driven data emphasizes product placement. Self-reported surveys lack consistency and comparability. As a result, employers struggle to trust the results or use them confidently in internal conversations.

When benchmarking lacks independence, it fails to provide the credibility employees and leaders are seeking.

Independent Benefits Benchmarking: A Clearer Way Forward

Independent benefits benchmarking changes the conversation. Instead of focusing on plan design alone, it answers a more relevant question:

How does our benefits package actually compare to employers like us?

Mployer provides the only independent benefits benchmarking in the U.S., free from broker or carrier influence. Organizations use it to identify retention risk, improve benefit perception without increasing spend, support recruiting narratives, and assess eligibility for the Mployer Benefit Award.

The results are often eye-opening, particularly for companies that believe their benefits are “about average.” In many cases, the data reveals hidden strengths that simply weren’t being communicated effectively.

What This Means for HR, Total Rewards, and Finance Leaders

Rising hiring costs, extended time-to-fill, and persistent turnover are rarely isolated problems. They are symptoms of broader gaps in how organizations position, communicate, and validate their total rewards strategy.

Benefits are not just an expense line. They are a lever for retention, recruiting efficiency, and productivity — when employees understand their value and trust the comparison.

A short benchmarking conversation can help clarify where your benefits truly stand, how employees likely perceive them, and whether your organization qualifies for independent benchmarking and the Mployer Benefit Award.

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The PBM Challenge in Today's Market

(An easy to understand guide)

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Prescription drug costs have surged dramatically in recent years, placing increasing strain on employer-sponsored health plans. Between 2000 and 2020, retail prescription drug spending in the U.S. nearly doubled (a 91% increase) and continues to climb—outpacing most other healthcare cost categories. The rise stems from two primary factors: expensive new specialty therapies (like weight-loss and biologic treatments) and the opaque role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) in setting prices. What makes matters worse is that Americans pay dramatically more than people in other high-income nations—U.S. drug prices average 2.78 times higher than in 33 comparable countries, and brand-name drugs can cost more than four times as much. This steep cost trajectory and global overpayment emphasize why understanding and managing PBMs has become essential for employers aiming to control healthcare spend and protect employees.

How PBMs Actually Work

When an employer designs its health plan, it either chooses a PBM directly or selects a carrier that already has a PBM embedded in its plan. From there, the PBM takes control of the prescription drug benefit. They build the formulary—the list of drugs that are covered—and negotiate with manufacturers to decide which drugs make the list. By narrowing coverage to certain products, PBMs gain leverage to demand better deals. They also restrict which pharmacies are in-network, again concentrating volume to maximize bargaining power.

This means PBMs effectively set the market, costs, and tiers employees experience: whether a drug falls into Tier 1 with a $10 copay or Tier 4 with a 25% coinsurance is dictated by the PBM’s design. On the back end, PBMs collect rebates from drug makers. A rebate is essentially a kickback payment from the manufacturer to the PBM, offered in exchange for favorable placement of a drug on the formulary or higher expected utilization. For example, if two similar drugs treat the same condition, the manufacturer willing to pay a higher rebate is more likely to have their drug chosen. Some portion of these rebates is passed back to the employer to lower plan costs, but a significant share is often kept by the PBM—one of the biggest transparency concerns in the system

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How Drug Tiers and Payment Structures Work

Most employer health plans organize prescription coverage into tiers, which determine both access and cost-sharing for employees.

• Tier 1 (Generics): Lowest-cost drugs, usually just a $10–$20 copay. They are widely accessible and often encouraged as first-line therapy.

• Tier 2 (Preferred Brands): Brand-name drugs that PBMs have negotiated discounts on. Employees typically pay $30–$50 copays or around 20% coinsurance.

• Tier 3 (Non-Preferred Brands): Higher-cost brand drugs not favored on the formulary. Employees may owe 40%+ coinsurance, leading to hundreds in out-of-pocket costs.

• Tier 4 (Specialty Drugs): High-cost therapies for serious conditions like cancer or hemophilia. These usually require coinsurance (20–30%), which can mean thousands of dollars per month. Although they make up less than 2% of prescriptions, specialty drugs drive nearly half of total drug spending.

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Copays vs. Coinsurance

• A copay is a fixed, predictable dollar amount per prescription.

• Coinsurance is a percentage of the total drug cost until the deductible or out-of-pocket maximum is reached. While it helps share costs, it creates unpredictability—especially for specialty drugs, where 25% coinsurance could mean $250 on a $1,000 medication or much more on therapies costing thousands each month.

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For employers, understanding how tiers and cost-sharing are structured is critical, since they directly affect both plan expenses and employee affordability.

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High-Cost Drugs and Their Outsized Impact

While high-cost drugs represent only a small fraction of total prescriptions, their impact on employer health plans is staggering. Specialty medications—such as those for cancer, hemophilia, and autoimmune disorders—account for less than 2% of prescriptions but drive close to 50% of all drug spending. Their costs have grown at double-digit rates year over year, fueled by new biologics, gene therapies, and infusion-based treatments that can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. According to Sun Life’s High-Cost Claims Report, in many catastrophic claim categories like hemophilia or leukemia, prescription drugs make up more than 90% of the total cost of care. For employers, this means a single claimant on a specialty drug can dramatically shift overall plan spend, making pharmacy benefits one of the most volatile and financially significant areas to manage.

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How Carriers Handle High-Cost Drugs

Carriers cover most FDA-approved specialty drugs but tightly manage access and cost. They use formularies to decide which drugs are included (and on what tier), require prior authorization or step therapy before approving treatment, and often restrict dispensing to their own specialty pharmacy networks. Coverage is generally limited to drugs deemed medically necessary, while experimental or non-formulary drugs are excluded unless appealed. For employees, this can mean higher coinsurance, delays in approval, and fewer choices on where prescriptions can be filled.

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Who Controls the PBM Market—and Who’s Challenging It

Today, most carriers are tied to the “Big Three” PBMs, which together control more than 75% of the market:

• Aetna/CVS → CVS Caremark

• Cigna → Express Scripts

• UnitedHealthcare → OptumRx

• Anthem/Blue Cross (varies by region) → Caremark or Express Scripts

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This consolidation means that for many employers, pharmacy benefits are automatically bundled with one of these large PBMs, leaving little room for visibility or flexibility.  

The remaining 25% is made up of disruptors offering more transparent models. Players like SmithRx (pass-through pricing with detailed reporting), MedOne (independent PBM with customizable formularies and full rebate pass-through), and Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs (a direct-to-consumer model selling drugs at cost plus a small margin) are challenging the status quo. For employers, knowing which PBM their carrier relies on—and whether a carve-out to one of these disruptors is possible—can be a critical step in controlling pharmacy costs.

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Legislation and Reform Efforts

In recent years, lawmakers have increasingly targeted the opaque practices of PBMs, introducing multiple federal bills like the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act (S. 127, 2023) and the PBM Transparency Act of 2025 (S. 526). These aim to ban spread pricing, require full rebate pass-through, and mandate detailed reporting—but none have passed into law yet. Similarly, a 2025 House bill dubbed the PBM Reform Act proposes greater transparency around Medicare Part D contracts and delinking PBM compensation from drug prices, but it remains pending in committee.

At the state level, all 50 states have enacted some degree of PBM regulation. Few states have gone further: for example, Iowa is considering a law imposing minimum pharmacy dispensing fees, and Arkansas passed legislation curbing PBMs’ ownership of pharmacies—though that law has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge

In short: there's plenty of activity at both federal and state levels—but no sweeping reforms have become law yet, leaving employers to manage PBM challenges proactively on their own.

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Be Educated: Key Questions to Ask Your Broker

1. Who is our PBM, and is it bundled with our carrier?

2. Do we receive 100% of rebates, or are they retained?

3. Can we carve out our PBM given our size and funding model?

4. Which high-cost drugs are driving our spend?

5. Do we get claim-level reporting from our PBM? (often not)

6. What specialty drug management strategies are in place?

7. How does our plan compare to industry peers?

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Closing Thoughts

Prescription drug costs are no longer a side issue—they’re a central driver of employer healthcare spend. The combination of high-cost specialty therapies and the opaque role PBMs play in setting formularies, controlling access, and managing rebates makes this one of the most complex and consequential areas of benefit management. For employers, the path forward starts with awareness: knowing which PBM you’re tied to, how rebates flow, which drugs are shaping your spend, and what levers you have to push for transparency or carve out alternatives.

While legislation at the federal and state levels may eventually bring more clarity and accountability to the PBM market, employers cannot afford to wait. By asking sharper questions, exploring disruptive PBM models, and partnering with brokers who understand this space, employers can take meaningful steps today to control costs and support employees more effectively.

Bottom line: Prescription drug costs are only going up. Employers that engage now—by digging into the details and holding PBMs and carriers accountable—will be best positioned to protect both their budgets and their people.

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Does Your 401(k) Plan Stack Up? Why Retirement Benefits Are the Quiet Power Player in Talent Strategy

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Key Takeaways

• Employers often overestimate the competitiveness of their 401(k) plans, while employees increasingly factor retirement benefits into job decisions.

• Match percentages alone don’t tell the whole story; vesting, plan design, admin fees, and investment performance all shape true plan value.

• Mployer has created the only solution that benchmarks retirement plans across 25,000+ designs, giving you a clear, data-backed rating.

• The top quartile of employers contribute nearly 2.3x more annually than the bottom quartile, and they outperform in participation and retention.

• With Insights+, employers can now evaluate their 401(k) offering with the same rigor as salary benchmarking, leading to a powerful edge in recruiting and retention.
  

The Strategic Blind Spot: Retirement Plan Competitiveness

Ask a benefits leader if their 401(k) plan is competitive and you’ll hear a confident “yes.” But ask based on what and the answers become fuzzier.

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Most employers assess retirement benefits by match rate or overall offering (“we have one, so we’re good”). But match percentage is just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is, retirement plan competitiveness is shaped by a complex set of variables, many of which fly under the radar for a lot of employees.

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From vesting schedules and administrative fees to plan flexibility and participation rates, the design of your 401(k) can quietly impact:

• Retention among mid- and late-tenure employees

• Offer acceptance among experienced candidates

• Total rewards perception and employee satisfaction

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And yet, few employers are equipped to quantify how their plan performs relative to the market.

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Until now.

Introducing Mployer Insights+: The First 401(k) Benchmarking Solution for Employers

Mployer’s Insights+ platform is the only system that allows you to benchmark your retirement benefits with meaningful accuracy and market alignment.

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Unlike outdated surveys or generic industry reports, Insights+ uses a 25,000+ plan dataset and proprietary scoring methodology to rate your retirement plan against your peers - by size, industry, and region.

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We analyze not just what you offer, but how it performs across four core categories:

• Employer Contributions

• Plan Design & Features

• Administrative Costs & Investment Returns

• Employee Participation & Utilization

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The result? A retirement plan competitiveness score that gives you the confidence and clarity to know exactly where you stand.

Why Match Rate Isn’t Enough

Let’s look at two hypothetical employers:

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Company A looks generous on paper, but if employees don’t stay long enough to vest, or the plan underperforms after fees, the realized value is far lower.

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Insights+ makes these trade-offs visible, quantifiable, and actionable.

What the Data Tells Us

According to the 2025 Mployer dataset:

• The average employer contribution is $1,286 per employee per year.

• But top-performing employers contribute over $2,900 annually, which is more than double the market median.

• 35% of plans still use vesting schedules that delay employee ownership of employer contributions.

• Administrative fees vary widely from 12.7 to 82.5 basis points, while 1-year returns range from 11% to 16%, depending on plan design.

• Only 21% of plans use auto-enrollment, despite its proven effect on participation rates.

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Participation rates reflect this disparity:

• Bottom quartile: 74%

• Top quartile: 94%

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Retirement Benefits = Recruiting + Retention Leverage

Retirement plans aren’t just a compliance checkbox - they’re a competitive differentiator. Mployer research shows:

• 23% of employees left a job in the last year for better benefits.

• 89% are more likely to apply to companies that clearly communicate benefits.

• Employees significantly undervalue their current benefits, incorrectly believing they are worth about $11,200 annually while the actual investment is closer to $23,200.

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That perception gap creates missed opportunities to recruit, engage, and retain the people you want most.

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What You Get With Mployer Insights+

Benchmarking your retirement plan is easier than you think.

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With Insights+, you’ll receive:

• A custom 401(k) Competitiveness Score

• A detailed breakdown of plan strengths and weaknesses

• Benchmarking across region, industry, and size

• Participation and contribution comparisons vs. peers

• A recognition kit for high-performing plans including badges and messaging templates to boost your employer brand

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Whether you’re evaluating your broker’s recommendation, planning open enrollment, or preparing for a comp review, this is the data advantage you’ve been missing.

See How Your 401(k) Stacks Up

‍In a labor market where top talent has options, strong retirement benefits can tip the scale in your favor - but only if you can prove it.

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Mployer Insights+ helps you:

• Quantify your retirement plan’s real value

• Compare against thousands of actual plans

• Make improvements with confidence

• Showcase your investment to candidates and employees alike

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Don’t settle for assumptions. Benchmark with precision.

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Ready to find out how your plan stacks up? Visit Mployer to get started.

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‍Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from May 2025 that was published in June 2025. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

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The unemployment rate has been remarkably steady for the past year, fluctuating between 4.0% and 4.2% during that term, although there are some significant warning signs that the labor market has softened.

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Meanwhile, US employers added 139 thousand jobs, which is on par with the approximate 149 thousand net jobs added over the last 12 months on average, albeit down more than 20% from last month’s initially reported figure of 177 thousand.

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While the number of people who have been jobless for 5 weeks or less increased by 264 thousand to reach about 2.5 million, a comparable amount of people (216 thousand) dropped from the ranks of the long-term unemployed - which includes people looking for a job who have been without a job for 27 weeks or more. 

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What may be more telling regarding the evolving labor market conditions, however, is the decrease in both employment-population ratio (which dropped 0.3% down to 59.7%) and labor force participation rate (which fell by 0.2% down to 62.4%), both of which indicate that more people are leaving the workforce.

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Of the net 139 thousand jobs added last month, the healthcare industry saw the largest uptick, with 62 thousand net new jobs, followed by the leisure and hospitality industry which added 48 thousand net jobs - nearly 2.5x the monthly average of 20 thousand net jobs recorded over the last year.

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The social assistance industry also had a net positive increase in payroll figures, adding about 16 thousand jobs all of which were in the individual and family services subset, but most of the rest of the industries saw no meaningful change in employment numbers -  except temporary workers and federal government workers, the latter of which declined by 22 thousand as more of the DOGE workforce cuts began to appear in the data. In total, the federal workforce is down almost 60 thousand jobs in 2025.

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The manufacturing sector and retail employees saw relatively minor declines in employment figures, as well. 

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Despite the potential softening of the labor market, average hourly wages increased by an average of 15 cents last month, climbing to $36.24 per hour. Average hourly earnings are up almost 4% over the last 12 months.

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The average number of hours worked weekly across the US, however, held steady at 34.3 hours for the third month in a row.

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Mployer’s Take

The waiting game continues in the labor market, which showed decent gains but also indicated that people are losing confidence in their ability to find a new job in the event that they lose their old one.

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Beyond the reductions to the federal workforce, people working temporary jobs saw the next largest decrease, and although that reduction was not particularly significant, fewer temp workers perhaps indicates that employers are being more cautious with their payroll expenditures.

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Continued uncertainty surrounding tariffs and federal budgets may be contributing to caution among business leaders, but the 139 thousand net jobs is marginally better than the 130 thousand jobs that economists were forecasting, so perhaps those uncertainties are essentially baked into the workforce calculation equations for the time being at least. 

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In effect, the lack of clarity about economic conditions going forward is likely causing employers to be patient when it comes to both hiring new workers and letting existing workers go.

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Incidentally, this jobs report will likely lead the Federal Reserve to exercise patience and caution when it comes to lowering the interest rate, as well.

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In short, the latest data largely indicates ‘business as usual’ for the immediate future, but with the tariff extension pause for most affected countries scheduled to wrap up in just under a month and with additional uncertainties emerging on the domestic front with regard to immigration enforcement actions and the resulting public response, ‘business as usual’ may be (or may not be) relatively short-lived.

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Check out the Mployer blog here.

Each month, Mployer collects and presents some of the most relevant and most pressing recent changes in law, compliance, and policy in areas related to employee benefits, health care, and human resources.

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EEO-1 Form Data Submission

As of May 20, 2025, the online filing system for Federal EE0-1 Data Submission is now open for submission. Private employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors that meet certain criteria must submit the relevant data by June 24, 2025, which is less time to submit than in previous years. You can read more here. 

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I-9 Form Update

US Citizenship and Immigration Services released a new I-9 form on April 2, 2025. Some of the updates include replacing the word “non-citizen” with “alien” and the word “sex” has replaced “gender.”

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The previous I-9 forms - released on August 1, 2023 - remain valid until their listed expiration dates, in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

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You can find the new forms here. 

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State Updates

Colorado: Beginning July 1, 2025, Colorado employers that collect biometric data (e.g. fingerprints, retina scans, etc.) from employees and/or job candidates must follow the expanded guidelines laid out in the Colorado Privacy Act, which include implementing a written policy addressing biometric collection protocol and obtaining consent for the collection of biometric data. You can read more here. 

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Also Beginning July 1, 2025, employees taking continuous leave under the Family and Medical Leave Insurance program must be employed for 180 days prior to taking leave in accordance with the program, but employees taking intermittent leave, that job protection begins as soon as an employee hits their 180th day on the job, even if leave has already begun at that point. You can read more here. 

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As of May 16, 2025, Colorado has clarified that protected gender expression in the workplace includes chosen names and pronouns and that continuing to use a person’s birth name and pronouns against their wishes is an act of discrimination. You can read more here.

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As of February 1, 2026 Colorado employers that use artificial intelligence to evaluate employees and job applicants are required to take proactive measures to ensure that those platforms are not enabling discriminatory practices. You can read more here.

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Georgia: Employers in Georgia must begin phasing out below-minimum wage payments for employees with disabilities, with no new subminimum wage employment agreements beginning July 1, 2025 even for those employers with valid authorization certificates from the Department of Labor. Existing subminimum wage agreements must be equal or greater to half of the federal minimum wage by July 1, 2026 and must equal or exceed federal minimum wage standards by July 1, 2027. You can read more here.

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New York: As of May 8, 2025, NY employers with more than 3 employees must conspicuously post their lactation room accommodation policies and guidelines as well as the relevant state requirements both somewhere accessible by all employees and on the organization's intranet if applicable

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As of March 22, 2025, all New York employers regardless of size are prohibited from requiring job applicants or employees from providing a copy of their criminal history report that was obtained via the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. 

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As of  March 2, 2025, all New York employers are prohibited from requiring job applicants to provide a copy of their criminal history record, which closes a loophole employers had been exploiting to obtain such records despite restrictions regulating their access to those records.

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Beginning June 2, 2025, employers with 10 or more retail employees must have in place a written policy and training program for violence prevention measures and retail employers with 500 or more employees must install and/or maintain silent response buttons to alert authorities about emergencies. This legislation was originally slated to take effect March 4, 2025, But was amended to clarify employer responsibilities.

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Further, as of January 1, 2025, New York employers are required to provide 20 hours of paid prenatal leave during a 52 week period. Also, as of the new year, the characteristics to which equal protection was extended via the New York State Human Rights Law and the resulting protections are formally enshrined in the New York State Constitution. Those characteristics include: age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, pregnancy, and anything else related to reproductive healthcare.

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Oklahoma: Beginning November 1, 2025, Oklahoma is increasing the allowable tip credit - more info to come as it becomes available. You can read more here.  

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Oregon: Beginning July 1, 2025, Minimum wage increases across Oregon - climbing to $16.30 per hour in the Portland metro area, $15.05 per hour in standard counties, and $14.05 per hour in non-urban counties. You can read more about the increase schedule here and determine which counties fall into which categories here. 

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Beginning September 29, 2025, Oregon employers will be prohibited from asking candidates for certain age-related information like date of birth or graduation dates prior to and unless certain conditions are met. You can read more here. 

Beginning January 1, 2026, Oregon employees will be permitted to utilize sick leave for certain types of blood donations and Oregon employers will be required to provide employees certain information about earnings and deductions on their pay stubs - more information to come as it becomes available. You can read more here and here, respectively.

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As of January 1, 2025, Paid Leave Oregon provides leave for employees completing necessary legal steps associated with adopting and/or fostering children.

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Tennessee: As of April 11, 2025, employers in Tennessee are required to pay out all owed earnings in the event of an employee’s death. Previously, Tennessee employers could cap those payments at $10,000. You can read more here. 

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Washington: Beginning June 27, 2025, employees in Washington state will be permitted to use sick leave in order to address immigration-related issues. You can read more here.

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The Washington state legislature has also updated several laws governing when minors are allowed to work, employee protections, health care worker rest breaks, and workplace safety measures in certain industries. You can find those bills here, here, here, and here, respectively.

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Beginning July 27, 2025, Washington employers with at least 50 full-time employees will be required to provide 60 days written notice in advance of layoffs or business closures that result in the loss of employment for at least 50 full-time employees. You can read more here. 

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Also beginning July 27, 2025, Washington employers will no longer be able to require that employees have driver’s licenses unless driving is part of the job function and/or central to a legitimate business purpose, and Washington employers must provide current and former employees (for up to 3 years following their term of employment) with copies of their personnel files at no cost within 21 days of receiving the request. You can read more here and here, respectively. 

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The Washington state legislature also made updates to job posting disclosure requirements here that take effect on July 27, 2025, as well.  

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Beginning January 1, 2026, the Washington state Paid Family Medical Leave Act will be expanded to include smaller employers. You can read more here. 

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As of May 1, 2025, minimum wage in the city of Bellingham, Washington increased to $18.66 per hour. You can read more here. 

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Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that state laws that protect job candidates and workers from arrest-record discrimination also apply to non-criminal offenses like civil violations. You can read more here. 

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Minimum Wage For Federal Contractors Rescinded

On March 14, President Trump rescinded Executive Order 14026 - which Biden signed in 2021 and raised the minimum wage for federal contractors from $10.10 per hour to $15 per hour with mechanisms contained within the order to continue increasing this wage minimum over time. 

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On January 1, 2025, in accordance with EO 14026, the minimum wage for federal contractors increased to $17.75 per hour, but now that Trump has rescinded EO 14026, it is unclear what the current minimum wage for federal contractors is.

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You can read more here.

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Alternative Manner For 1095-B & 1095-C Distribution

If your organization is using the alternative method for distributing 1095-B and 1095-C forms in accordance with the Paperwork Burden Reduction Act, your website must be in compliance from the first business day of March through at least October 15th. You can find guidance from the IRS about how to properly follow compliance protocols here.

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DEI Executive Orders Paused

On February 21, 2025, a federal judge put a stay on Trump’s Executive Order limiting the ability of federal agencies and federal contractors to operate Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs. The court questioned whether the order violated free speech rights and potentially illegally restricted otherwise legal actions taken by private entities. You can find the decision here. 

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Form 300A Submission Due

From February 1st to April 30th, non-exempt (low hazard) employers who had at least 11 employees at some point in 2024 must post in a conspicuous place a copy of OSHA Form 300A, Summary of Work-Related Illness and Injury, certified by a company executive.

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For non-exempt employers that had 250 or more employees at some point last year and employers with 20 or more employees in specified high risk industries, OSHA requires electronic submissions, which are due by March 2nd, 2025. 

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You can find the electronic submission platform here. 

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EAD Extension Formalized

As of January 13, 2025, the extension period for certain renewal Employee Authorization Document (EAD) applications filed on May 4, 2022 or later has been formalized at 540 days.

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You can read more here.

IRS Mileage Reimbursement Rate Increased

As of January 1, 2025, the IRS mileage reimbursement rate for road miles driven for business purposes increased by 3 cents per mile from 67 to 70 cents per mile driven. 

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‍DOL Reinstates Simplified Tip Credit Rule

In response to a Federal Court of Appeals Decision that vacated the so-called 80/20/30 rule that was instituted in 2021, the Department of Labor officially reverted to the previous tip credit rule.

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You can read more here.

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Increased ACA Flexibility and Affordability Threshold

As of January 1, 2025, the threshold for what qualifies as affordable coverage is now 9.02%, which means that an employee’s required contribution to the plan can be no more than 9.02% of their salary in order for the plan to be considered affordable and to avoid potentially paying the penalty. 

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You can read more about the affordability threshold here.

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IRS Publishes 2025 Annual Retirement Plan Maximums

• The 401(k) annual contribution limit increased from $23,000 to $23,500 in 2025.
• The catch-up contribution limit stayed unchanged at $7,500 for participants aged 50 and over.
• The SECURE Act 2.0 also instituted a new type of catch-up contribution, which enables participating people (age 60 to 63) to contribute up to $11,250 annually.

You can read more here. 

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IRS Publishes 2025 Annual Benefit Maximums

• The HFSA contribution max is $3,300 (maximum carryover is $650 for HFSAs with carryover features).
• The QSEHRA max for total reimbursements is $6,350 for single coverage and $12,800 for family coverage.
• The max employee tax credit for adoption assistance is $17,280, with additional conditions depending on employee salary range. 
• The monthly parking and mass transit benefit max is $325. 

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You can find the complete IRS 2025 benefit contribution limit list here.

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ERISA Guidance for Long-Term Part-Time Employees

You can find guidance for ERISA 403(b) plan eligibility requirements for long-term, part-time employees according to the updated standards from the Secure ACT 2.0 here.