Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from August 2024 that was published in September 2024. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The US unemployment rate average came down about one-tenth of a point last month, dropping from approximately 4.3% to 4.2%.
For context, the US unemployment rate hasn’t been above 4.3% since October of 2021, representing a tight labor market for an extended period of time seldom seen in US history outside of wartime.
Only 1 state saw its internal unemployment rate come down over the month, however, with Connecticut showing a 0.2% unemployment rate reduction, falling from 3.6% to 3.4%.
On the other hand, 7 ‘states’ - Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington DC - recorded increases in their state unemployment rates, ranging from plus 0.1% to plus 0.4%. The number of states with climbing unemployment rates is down from 13 the month prior.
The more than 140 thousand new jobs added last month across the US as a whole resulted in 4 states with a net increase in payroll figures, while only 1 state - South Dakota - saw a net decrease in jobs, and the remainder were essentially unchanged.
Below is the breakdown of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) market employment summary for September 2024.
For the fourth straight month, Washington DC had the highest unemployment rate, jumping two-tenths of a point from 5.5% to 5.7%.
Nevada had the next highest unemployment rate, climbing from 5.4% to 5.5%.
California and Illinois were the only 2 other states that posted unemployment rates above 5%, at 5.3% each.
Washington State at 4.8% unemployment was the only other state above the US average, and the only other state above 4% for that matter.
South Carolina saw the largest increase in unemployment last month, spiking 0.4% from 3.9% to 4.3% unemployment, while Washington DC, Georgia, and Massachusetts each saw 0.2% increases in their respective unemployment rates, and 0.1% unemployment rate increases were recorded by Minnesota, North Dakota, and Utah.
Half of all states plus Washington DC recorded an increase in unemployment over the last 12 months - the largest increases going to Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Ohio, with 1.7%, 1.4%, and 1.0% increases, respectively.
For the 8th month in a row, South Dakota has recorded the lowest unemployment rate, holding steady at 2%.
Vermont has the next lowest unemployment rate at 2.2%, followed by North Dakota at 2.3% and New Hampshire at 2.6%. Mississippi and Nebraska are next at 2.7%; followed by Alabama and Maine at 2.8%; and Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, and Wisconsin at 2.9% unemployment.
Only Connecticut saw its unemployment rate decrease over the month, dropping 0.2% from 3.6% unemployment to 3.4%.
Over the last 12 months, only 4 states have seen a net reduction in their unemployment rates, led by Arizona ( - 0.7%) and followed by Connecticut ( - 0.4%), Wisconsin ( - 0.4%), and Mississippi ( - 0.5%).
Despite having the lowest unemployment rate, or perhaps because it has consistently had the lowest unemployment rate among states throughout 2024, South Dakota was the only state to record a net decrease in jobs over the month, dropping a little more than 3 thousand and seeing in-state payrolls reduce by 0.7%.
No state recorded a net reduction in jobs over the course of the year.
Indiana, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin all recorded net payroll increases last month.
Texas recorded the largest net gain both in terms of raw jobs figures and percentage gain, with the Texas labor force growing by 0.6% or almost 80 thousand jobs over the course of August.
Indiana tied Texas at 0.6% job growth and had the second largest number of raw jobs gains, netting almost 20 thousand.
Minnesota added a bit more than 14 thousand jobs for 0.5% growth and Wisconsin added a little less than 12 thousand jobs, accounting for 0.4% growth.
Over the course of the last year, Missouri and South Carolina have recorded the largest workforce growth rates at 3.3% each, followed by Montana at 3.1% and Alaska at 2.8%.
The states with the smallest job growth rates over the year are Massachusetts and New Jersey at 1.1% each, followed by Wisconsin at 1.2% and Iowa at 1.3%.
In terms of raw job figures, Texas has added just over 300 thousand net jobs over the last 12 months, while California added just under 290 thousand, Florida added just over 200 thousand, New York added 140 thousand, and Pennsylvania added a bit more than 100 thousand jobs.
The big economic story of the moment is the long-awaited interest rate cuts that finally arrived when the Federal Reserve reduced rates by half a percentage point last week, bringing baseline rates down to between 4.75% and 5%.
Further, the Fed is poised to lower interest rates by another half point over the remainder of 2024, and is on course to bring rates down by another percentage point over 2025, as well - assuming that inflation and employment trends hold.
While there are more than a few intervening events and trend shifts that might disrupt potential 2025 rate reductions, an additional half point cut in 2024 remains far more likely than not to occur at this point.
According to Fed projections, although inflation has yet to fall below the Fed’s stated target of 2%, we are expected to cross that threshold by 2026, and unemployment is forecast to climb slowly through 2025 before leveling out.
In sum, keep an eye out for more interest rate relief in the near-term, and maybe significant interest relief next year as well if expectations about our current economic trajectory hold. It has been a long time coming.
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Key Takeaways
ARTICLE | The Boring Yet Obligatory Guide to Dental & Vision Insurance For Employers
Dental and vision insurance have often been looked at as more of an afterthought than a necessity, but those views are quickly becoming outdated.
Not only are an increasing number of organizations offering supplemental dental and/or vision insurance options, but more and more organizations are choosing to contribute to the coverage costs, as well, which further encourages participation.
In addition to that organic growth, a slew of recent changes in vision and dental insurance-related law both at the state and federal level indicates that this space currently has the attention of policymakers, as well, with one new federal rule poised to expand demand levels for dental and vision services in the coming years, potentially leading to some upward pressure on the costs associated with these services in the future.
Let’s take a look at dental and vision coverage in terms of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.
According to the most recent Mployer Insights data for 2024, the vast majority of employers offer dental insurance (93%) with a slightly smaller proportion offering vision insurance (82%) as well, but smaller organizations are less likely to offer these supplemental forms of health insurance than larger organizations.
In fact, only about 40% of employers with between 2 and 24 employees offer dental insurance, but that number climbs significantly to about 90% and up for employers with 100 or more employees. About 60% of employers with between 25 and 49 employees offer dental insurance, while about 75% of employers with between 50 and 99 employees offer dental insurance, so the employee count and dental insurance trend are pretty closely correlated, although there is some additional variance depending on industry and geographical region, as well.
Interestingly, the percentage of employees who choose to enroll in dental insurance plans if offered by their employer is much less correlated with employee count and more consistent across variously sized companies. The enrollment rate for companies with between 3 and 24 employees is about 71% and about 75% for companies with 500 or more employees.
Employer contributions toward employee dental coverage aren’t strongly correlated with employee count, either, with about 16% of employers covering 100% of the premium, about 16% of employers making no contributions toward employee dental plan costs, and the remainder (about 68%) making partial contributions.
As for vision insurance, about 62% of employers with between 3 and 24 employees offer it, which is significantly above the 40% of comparably-sized employers that offer dental insurance, but only about 83% of employers with 100 or more employees offer vision insurance, which is a bit under the approximate 90% of employers with 100 or more employees offering employee dental plans.
Participation rates among employees who are offered vision insurance hovers in the low 70% regardless of company size, which is comparable to dental insurance as well. Employer contributions toward employee vision plan costs are comparable - although slightly more generous - than dental plan contributions, with about 19% of employers making a 100% contribution to employee vision plans and about 64% providing a partial contribution.
It is also worth noting how these trends have evolved over time with half of the growth in small business dental insurance offering rates since the beginning of the millennium occurring in just the four years between 2019 and 2023.
The proportion of smaller organizations offering vision coverage has seen comparable growth, with the percentage of large employers who offer vision insurance doubling between 2006 and 2023, while the percentage of small employers offering vision insurance quadrupled over the same time period.
Smaller organizations clearly lagged behind larger organizations in terms of adding dental and vision benefits to their offerings, but they have nearly caught up at relatively low employee counts in terms of participation, although there is still room for differentiation on the contribution front, both with dental and vision coverage, which is especially relevant given how consistent demand seems to be for these offerings at employers of all sizes.
There are no laws that require employers to provide employees with dental or vision insurance, although doing so has certainly become the norm amongst organizations, regardless of size.
Further, the ACA does not require parents to provide children with dental insurance, but it does label dental insurance for children as an essential health benefit, thereby requiring that such coverage be either included in a plan or offered as a separate plan in order for an insurance plan to meet the minimum qualifications necessary to appear on the exchanges.
A few months ago, however, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services issued a new rule that will allow states to designate non-pediatric dental care for adults as an essential health benefit as well, which will broadly expand the dental coverage options for many of the residents of states that opt-in.
As a caveat, it is important to bear in mind that this expansion will only apply to those states that take proactive steps to label adult dental care as an essential health benefit as a matter of law, which is not a cause that will be taken up by all state legislatures in the near future, so not all states will see a meaningful shift in demand as a result.
There has also been significant activity in recent years addressing issues including transparency, patient choice, downcoding, network access, and loss ratios.
While there are several different plan designs for dental benefits, by far the most common are Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans, accounting for more than 8 out of 10 employer-sponsored dental plans.
Typically, DPPO plans contain an annual cap on all expenses, which is the most money that an insurer will pay out for a claimant in total over a single year.It’s important to also point out that these annual caps often exclude orthodontic work, which may have a separate lifetime cap - meaning that orthodontic work doesn’t count against the annual cap but instead has its own separate maximum dollar figure that an insurer will pay out for orthodontic work over the life of the policy.
Additionally, DPPOs will typically require insurance to cover a predetermined percentage of any given service up to that annual limit after a small annual deductible is met.For example, a DPPO plan may have a $1,500 annual cap and a small annual deductible, which is often waived for class 1 preventative services. Coinsurance amounts are usually broken down by class of service, with plans typically covering preventative services like teeth cleanings at 100% (deductible waived), 80% coverage for basic restoration work (after deductible is met), 50% for major restoration work, and 50% for orthodontic work up to a lifetime max (e.g. $1,500).
Other relatively common types of dental plans include Dental Health Maintenance Organizations (DHMO), which prepay dentists for potential services and account for about 4% of dental plans; traditional indemnity plans, which are similar to DPPOs but without the same in-network emphasis and account for about 3% of dental plans; Point of Service plans, which further emphasize discounts for in-network services; and Direct Reimbursement plans, which reimburses policy holders for their expenses after the fact according to a predetermined reimbursement schedule.Some of the key elements that distinguish plans are:
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You can read more about the various types of dental plan designs and their differences in this piece from the American Dental Association.
Four of the main types of vision plans closely mirror prominent plan types for dental insurance coverage: Preferred Provider Organization plans, Health Maintenance Organization plans, Point of Service plans, and Indemnity insurance plans.
Beyond plan structure, some of the main factors to consider that distinguish one plan from another are:
While deductibles are less common with vision insurance than dental and traditional medical coverage, copays and annual coverage caps are standard.
The US dental insurance market crossed the $80 billion threshold in 2021, and is expected to grow by 6% compounded each year between 2024 and 2029, while the US vision insurance market is expected to hit about $60 billion this year.
Top market share leaders in the US dental insurance market are:
The top market share leaders in the US vision insurance market are:
On one hand, it is understandable why dental and vision care have historically been dealt with as separate offerings from traditional medical care.
For one, professionals in each field are typically trained at separate institutions on separate courses of study with little overlap, and much dental and vision related care takes place at separate sites apart from hospitals and traditional medical practices.
But these distinctions are becoming less and less relevant given a modern understanding of how closely tied dental health can be to overall bodily health, not to mention the correlation between proper progressive lens care and productivity.
As with many other aspects of life and business, regular maintenance and an ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure, and employers have an opportunity not only to provide employees with a valuable benefit offering, but they can also stand apart from competitors on the talent attraction and retention front by not only offering dental and vision insurance but also making contributions to that coverage to further encourage employees to opt in.
With as many as 3 in 10 US adults currently without dental insurance, and with up to 8 in 10 US adults currently without vision insurance, there is no better time than the present for employers to review their benefits offerings to determine how best to help employees meet their dental and vision insurance needs.
Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from August 2024 that was published in September 2024. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
For the first time in 5 months, the US unemployment rate has started coming down again, albeit ever so slightly from about 4.2% to 4.1%.
US employers also added 142 thousand jobs to their payrolls, which was a decent performance although about 20 thousand jobs fewer than expected. Downward revisions of the job numbers from the previous 2 months were a bit more substantial, however, accounting for about 80 thousand fewer jobs than previously reported.
The labor force participation rate held steady at about 62.7 million and has been pretty consistent all year long.
The number of people who have part-time jobs because full-time work was not available also essentially held steady at 4.8 million, but it is worth noting that this figure is up almost 15% from 4.2 million just 12 months ago. This change may in part represent a growing number of both employers and employees that have been navigating the softening economy and labor market and waiting for interest rates to come down before reevaluating their labor demand - a wait that will likely soon be over.
Among the 142 thousand jobs added to US employer payrolls last month, the construction industry claimed the largest share, with 34 thousand new jobs - almost an 80% increase over the approximate 19 thousand jobs added by the construction industry on average each of the last 12 months.
The healthcare industry wasn’t far behind with 31 thousand jobs added last month, but that figure represents a significant slow down in healthcare hiring and a major underperformance relative to the approximate 60 thousand jobs by which payrolls in the healthcare industry have increased on average each month over the last year.
The social services industry also added about 13 thousand jobs, down from an average monthly gain of 21 thousand.
While there was little to no change in job figures across the majority of the remainder of industries, the manufacturing industry actually saw a fairly significant reduction in jobs last month, losing 25 thousand positions in the durable goods production industries.
Average hourly pay rose by 4 cents last month, climbing to $35.21 per hour and representing a 0.4% increase over the month before. Average hourly pay has increased by 3.8% over the last year, outpacing inflation by nearly a percentage point over the same time frame.
The average workweek on the other hand increased by one-tenth of an hour up to 34.3 hours per week. In the manufacturing sector, however, the average workweek held steady at about 40 hours per week, but the average amount of overtime inched up one-tenth of a point as well to 3 hours per week.
Mployer’s Take
Last month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that Fed policy goals no longer include any further softening of the labor market, which paves the way for the first interest rate cuts since the Fed began raising rates 2 and a half years ago.
The Fed is expected to lower interest rates when they meet next week and this latest jobs report further solidifies that likelihood, but the main remaining question is how big of a cut they will implement.
With inflation now down below 3% on an annualized basis, some Fed watchers are expecting a 50 basis point interest rate cut, but the majority seems to be rallying around a more modest 25 basis point cut given the remaining resilience in the job market and economy in addition to the continuing upward pressure on wages.
To be clear, however, a 50 basis point rate cut is still a very real possibility, and is only slightly less likely than a 25 basis point cut.
It’s only a little over a week before September 18th when the Fed is expected to announce whether or not they will be cutting interest rates, and if so by how much, so the speculation about whether and how much rates will be cut this time will very soon be replaced by speculation about whether and how much interest rates will be cut next time when the Fed meets again in the first week of November.
Nothing is certain, of course, but it does seem like some interest rate relief may at long last be at hand.
While it took less than a year and a half for the Fed to increase interest rates from practically 0 to over 5 and a half percent (in increments of a quarter and half point at a time), however, it is likely going to take much, much longer to bring interest rates back down by even half of the increase we’ve seen since the pandemic.
We still appear to be on track for a relatively soft landing where inflation is tamped down without triggering a swift onset recession, but in order to maintain the delicate balance necessary to avoid some of the worse potential outcomes, this soft landing is going to occur over a very long period of time.
Check out the Mployer blog here.
Nashville, TN – September 4th, 2024 - Mployer, the nation’s leader in providing employee benefits ratings and analytics, today announced the launch of Insights+, an industry-first solution designed to empower employers, employees and leading brokers to rate their employee benefit plans against similar companies and easily communicate their position to employees and recruits.
Employers spend $1.5T+ on employee benefits each year, yet there is no definitive measure for employers or employees of what good benefits are. Some employers offer benefits much higher than intended overspending on benefits while others provide benefits that lag the market, yet do not know it. Insights+ solves this problem for free by allowing employers and employees to rate their benefits quickly and easily against employers just like them.
Key Features of Insights+include:
1. Free to use: Employers can access their rating for free by sharing their benefit plans guide. After sharing the guide, you will receive your rating in under 24 hours.
2. Detailed Plan Assessment: A 25-page assessment of your benefits vs. your custom cohort is available evaluating each component of your benefit package, from medical and contribution to leave and retirement.
3. Recognition and Communication Package: For employers who qualify, you will receive a Recognition Package to use to promote and communicate the value of your benefits to their employees.
“Insights+ is a game-changer for employers looking to stand out among the competition,” said Anthony Waters, Chief Growth Officer. “Providing recognition for great benefit plans will not only enhance employer branding, but also drive greater employee satisfaction, trust and retention.”
Chris Burns, CFO of Touchstone Closing, shared "Employees and new hires always ask if our benefits are good. We can finally answer that with confidence and show proof with Mployer's Insights+. Being able to see how our benefits compare to similar companies from an independent source is exactly what we needed to be confident and validate in the investment we make in benefits each year."
Insights+ is now available to employers nationwide. To see how your benefits are rated, visit https://mployeradvisor.com/employer-benefit-rating.
About Mployer
Mployer is transforming employee benefits by empowering employers and leading benefit consultants to easily assess, rate, and communicate the value of employee benefits. Providing industry-first transparency through unbiased research, benchmarking, and advanced analytics, our goal is to support employers and brokers in providing benefit plans that optimize costs and employee-employer relationships. To learn more about Mployer, visit https://mployeradvisor.comand follow us on LinkedIn.
Media Contact:
PAN Communications
As an employee, your benefits package is one of the most important aspects of your overall compensation. Beyond just salary, your benefits have real monetary value that contributes significantly to your financial well-being. A good benefits plan not only supports your health and security but also helps you plan for the future. Whether it's health insurance, retirement savings, paid time off, or additional perks like wellness programs and flexible work hours, understanding the financial value of these offerings can greatly enhance your job satisfaction and loyalty to your employer.
Your benefits aren’t just a bonus—they make up a significant portion of your total compensation. Many employees underestimate the financial value their benefits bring, but these offerings often account for a sizable portion of your overall earnings. For example, health insurance, retirement contributions, and paid leave all have measurable dollar amounts attached to them. Recognizing their worth can help you make more informed decisions about your job and long-term financial health.
A comprehensive benefits plan can also reduce your out-of-pocket expenses for medical care, save you money on taxes through retirement savings plans, and provide paid time off that allows you to take necessary breaks without losing income. By knowing the exact value of each benefit, you can better appreciate how much your employer is investing in your overall well-being.
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There’s a noticeable difference between the actual value of employee benefits and what employees perceive. On average, companies invest $23,200 annually in individual benefits, but employees tend to perceive the value as only $11,200. This gap illustrates why it's crucial to fully understand the true worth of your benefits.
Understanding the dollar value of your benefits can give you a clearer sense of your true compensation. Often, benefits are viewed as just additional perks, but they can make up a significant portion of your overall earnings. In some cases, the value of your benefits can be worth tens of thousands of dollars annually, making it essential to not only understand what’s included but also how each benefit impacts your financial health and long-term well-being. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the key benefits you should expect from a robust package and how each of these contributes to your financial security:
Health insurance is a cornerstone of any benefits package, and its financial value should not be underestimated. In the U.S., where healthcare costs can be extraordinarily high, having employer-sponsored health insurance can save you thousands—if not tens of thousands—of dollars annually in medical expenses. For example, the average premium for an individual health plan is about $7,000 annually, and for a family plan, it can reach over $21,000. If your employer covers a portion of these premiums, that’s a significant cost you’re avoiding. Some employers even cover the full amount, which can add substantial value to your overall compensation.
Additionally, many plans offer dental and vision insurance, which, although sometimes viewed as minor, can help cover the costs of dental cleanings, orthodontics, glasses, and eye exams—costs that can add up quickly. Understanding the structure of your health insurance, including premiums, deductibles, copayments, and out-of-pocket maximums, can help you assess the full financial value of the health benefits your employer provides. For example, an employer covering a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) with contributions to a Health Savings Account (HSA) can provide you with both immediate healthcare savings and long-term tax advantages.
In total, the annual value of a good health insurance plan could easily exceed $10,000, and understanding how this fits into your overall compensation helps you make smarter decisions regarding your health and finances.
Retirement savings plans, such as a 401(k) or 403(b), are another critical component of your benefits package, offering significant financial benefits both in the present and for your future. Many employers offer matching contributions, typically between 3% and 5% of your salary. If you’re earning $50,000 annually and your employer offers a 5% match, that’s an additional $2,500 going into your retirement account each year. Over time, with the power of compound interest, these contributions can grow exponentially, potentially adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to your retirement fund.
Beyond employer matching, many retirement plans come with tax advantages. Contributions are typically tax-deferred, meaning you don’t pay taxes on the money you contribute until you withdraw it in retirement, which can significantly lower your current taxable income. Some employers may also offer Roth 401(k) options, allowing you to pay taxes upfront and enjoy tax-free withdrawals in retirement. These benefits, when combined with employer contributions, can substantially improve your financial future.
Using tools like the Mployer Advisor Employee Benefits Calculator, you can calculate the full financial impact of these contributions and tax benefits on your long-term wealth. With smart planning, your employer’s retirement benefits could easily add tens of thousands of dollars to your overall compensation over the course of your career.
you’re ready to stop working.
Paid Time Off (PTO) is often an overlooked aspect of a benefits package, but it holds both intrinsic and financial value. PTO allows you to take time off without sacrificing your income, providing crucial rest and recovery time that supports your mental and physical health. PTO policies vary widely across employers, but let’s consider a typical scenario: if you earn $60,000 annually and receive 15 days of PTO, that’s the equivalent of being paid $3,460 for time you’re not working. For many employees, this can make a huge difference in their ability to balance work and personal life.
Some employers are even moving towards unlimited PTO policies, giving employees the flexibility to take time off as needed, which can lead to increased job satisfaction and improved productivity. Understanding the financial value of your PTO, whether it’s a set number of days or an unlimited policy, helps you better appreciate the compensation you receive beyond your regular paycheck.
In today’s competitive job market, employers are increasingly recognizing the value of offering a robust and diverse benefits package that goes beyond the basics of health insurance and retirement savings. Additional employee benefits, such as wellness programs, financial perks, flexible working hours, and other unique incentives, can significantly enhance the overall value of your compensation. These extras not only address various aspects of your well-being—physical, mental, and financial—but also help create a more supportive and productive work environment.
For employees, these added benefits can make a huge difference in day-to-day life, contributing to greater job satisfaction, reducing stress, and fostering a healthier work-life balance. Employers offering such perks are often more attractive to top talent, and these benefits can lead to higher retention rates as employees feel more supported in both their professional and personal lives. From wellness programs that promote a healthy lifestyle to financial benefits that alleviate concerns about long-term security, these additional offerings are becoming an essential part of modern benefits packages. Here's a closer look at how these extra perks can positively impact your work experience and why they’re worth taking full advantage of.
Wellness programs have gained significant popularity in recent years as employers recognize the importance of both physical and mental health. Many companies now offer free or subsidized access to fitness centers, which could save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars annually, depending on membership costs. Other wellness perks include access to mental health resources, such as therapy sessions or meditation apps, which may be otherwise expensive or difficult to access.
Wellness programs also extend to on-site health screenings, flu shots, and ergonomic assessments, helping you avoid out-of-pocket healthcare costs. Additionally, these programs can contribute to better long-term health, potentially reducing the need for more costly medical treatments down the line. In the long run, participating in wellness initiatives could not only save you money but also improve your quality of life and productivity at work.
Many employers offer financial assistance programs, such as student loan repayment, tuition reimbursement, or down payment assistance for homebuyers. These benefits provide immediate financial relief and help you achieve major life goals without taking on additional debt. For instance, if your employer reimburses $5,000 in tuition costs each year, you’re effectively adding that amount to your annual compensation without the burden of educational loans.
Some companies also offer financial wellness programs, providing tools like budgeting apps and access to financial advisors who can help you manage debt, plan for retirement, or save for major purchases. These resources, while not direct cash benefits, have measurable value in improving your long-term financial security.
Flexible work schedules are increasingly seen as a highly desirable benefit, especially in today’s evolving work environment. Remote work options or flexible hours can lead to substantial savings on commuting costs, child care, and even meals. For example, if you work from home three days a week and save $50 per week on gas and parking, that’s a $2,600 annual savings. Additionally, the flexibility to structure your workday around your most productive hours can improve work performance and job satisfaction.
Flexible work schedules also contribute to work-life balance, reducing stress and burnout, which can lead to higher productivity and a more fulfilling work experience. While the financial savings might not be as immediately apparent, the long-term value of this benefit can be substantial in terms of mental health and job satisfaction.
Your benefits package holds significant financial value, but it’s up to you to take full advantage of it. One of the first steps in maximizing your benefits is to calculate their total worth. Using the Mployer Advisor Employee Benefits Calculator, you can input your benefits and compare them against industry standards, giving you a clearer understanding of how much your employer is investing in your compensation.
It’s also important to regularly review and adjust your benefits as your personal and financial circumstances change. If you’re nearing retirement, for example, increasing your 401(k) contributions will allow you to maximize your employer’s matching contributions, effectively adding more money to your retirement savings. If you experience a significant life change, such as getting married or having a child, review your health insurance coverage to ensure it still meets your needs without overpaying for unnecessary coverage.
Additionally, fully leveraging PTO, wellness programs, and financial perks can significantly enhance the value you derive from your benefits. By being proactive, staying informed, and using tools like the Mployer Advisor Employee Benefits Calculator, you can ensure that your benefits are working for you in the best possible way.
To ensure your benefits plan is working for you, it’s important to regularly evaluate its effectiveness. One of the best ways to do this is by understanding how often you and your colleagues are using the various benefits offered. Are health insurance plans being utilized? Are employees taking full advantage of PTO and wellness programs? Tracking this information helps employers make necessary adjustments, ensuring the benefits offered continue to meet employee needs.
At Mployer Advisor, we make this process easier with our Employee Benefits Calculator. This tool allows you to input your current benefits and compare them against industry benchmarks, helping you evaluate if your package is competitive and truly supports your well-being. It’s a simple way to see if your employer's offerings match up with what’s available in the market and can help you identify areas for improvement in your benefits.
In addition to usage, companies often assess how benefits impact employee retention and job satisfaction. A strong, comprehensive benefits package typically results in lower turnover and happier employees. If your employer’s benefits are lacking, it may lead to dissatisfaction and higher turnover rates. With Mployer Advisor’s insights, you can gain valuable data on how your benefits package compares and provide feedback that could lead to enhancements in your workplace offerings.
Another critical measure is how benefits programs influence overall workplace engagement and employee health. For instance, wellness programs can improve your work-life balance and reduce sick days. The result is a healthier, more engaged workforce—and a more positive work environment for everyone. Mployer Advisor helps you see these connections clearly, so you can ensure your benefits are truly working for you.
A strong benefits package goes far beyond just being a part of your job—it’s an essential investment in your health, your future, and your overall well-being. Whether it's comprehensive health insurance, retirement savings plans, or wellness programs, the benefits you receive from your employer are designed to support you in all aspects of your life, both inside and outside of work. It’s not just about financial perks or insurance coverage; it's about creating a foundation for long-term personal and professional success.
Taking the time to fully understand your benefits package is crucial. Every option available to you—whether it's health insurance, paid time off, or financial support programs—has the potential to impact your quality of life. These benefits are more than just add-ons; they can reduce stress, improve your work-life balance, and help you plan for major life events like retirement, family growth, or health challenges. By familiarizing yourself with the details of your benefits and how they work, you’re ensuring that you’re making informed decisions about your health, your financial security, and your personal growth.
Furthermore, by taking full advantage of these offerings, you’re not just receiving compensation—you’re investing in yourself and your future. Whether it’s contributing to a retirement fund that will provide security in your later years, using wellness programs to maintain your mental and physical health, or leveraging flexible work schedules to create a better work-life balance, these benefits provide real, tangible value that goes well beyond your paycheck.
The benefits you receive today can have a lasting impact on your tomorrow. So, take the time to engage with them fully, ask questions when you need clarity, and regularly reassess how your benefits align with your current needs and future goals. In doing so, you are not only maximizing the value of your compensation package but also taking control of your well-being and setting yourself up for long-term success, both personally and professionally. Remember, investing in your employee benefits is, ultimately, an investment in yourself—an investment that can pay dividends for years to come.
Employee benefits play a significant role in boosting your overall job satisfaction and productivity. They go beyond just salary to support your well-being and contribute to a positive work environment. A strong benefits package helps attract and retain skilled employees like you, ensuring that you feel valued and supported in both your professional and personal life.
A complete benefits package typically includes health insurance, retirement savings options, and paid time off. These core components are essential for helping you maintain a balance between your work responsibilities and personal life. Health coverage supports your physical well-being, retirement plans ensure long-term financial security, and PTO gives you the flexibility to take care of yourself and your loved ones.
It’s important to understand how well your benefits are working for you. Regularly reviewing your benefits usage, comparing it to your needs, and staying informed about what’s available can help you maximize their value. Companies often measure the success of their benefits plan by tracking how often employees use them and how they impact job satisfaction and retention. As an employee, providing feedback on what works and what doesn’t can help ensure your employer tailors the benefits to better meet your needs.
Beyond the standard offerings, additional perks like wellness programs, financial assistance, flexible work schedules, pet insurance, and commuter benefits can significantly improve your experience. These extra benefits are designed to support different aspects of your life, contributing to greater satisfaction, work-life balance, and engagement at work. If your employer offers unique perks, take advantage of them to get the most out of your benefits package.
To get the most from your benefits, it’s essential to understand your options and how they apply to your personal needs. Regularly check your benefits package, ask questions when unclear, and take advantage of resources like your HR department or benefits portal to stay informed. Providing feedback on your benefits also helps your employer tailor their offerings to better support you and your colleagues. By engaging with your benefits, you’re ensuring they work for you in the best way possible.
Key Takeaways
ARTICLE | Preliminary Health Insurance Premium Rate Increases for 2025
Preliminary rate changes for 2025 for small group health insurance policy premiums through exchanges have started to be filed.
For context, the rate at which US healthcare expenditures are rising is expected to hit a 13 year high next year, with data from PwC indicating that medical costs are set to rise by about 8% for group coverage (7.5% for individual coverage), which is half a point above the 2024 growth rates and up significantly from a recent low of 5.5% growth in medical costs recorded in 2017.
At this stage in the process, these proposed rate changes are still open for public comment in many cases and are usually subject to further approval by in-state agencies that cover these insurance-related matters before the changes can be enacted.
Although these rates are not yet finalized, preliminary rates will often pretty closely mirror final rates.
While these proposed rates are not the exact same rates that companies can ultimately get if they are self-funding their employee insurance plans, these rates will usually correlate fairly tightly with the rates that self-funding companies can expect as the employee demographic and healthcare utilization patterns are similar in a given geography.
Here are the proposed rate changes for 2025 plans from all states that have released this information to date.
Individual health insurance plan premiums on the exchange are preliminarily set to decrease on (unweighted) average by -3.1% in 2025, while small group plan rates are proposed to climb by an unweighted average of 7.41%.
The largest average rate decrease for individual policies was proposed by Celtic Insurance Co. at - 7.28%, while the smallest increase in small group plan rates was 4.96%, requested by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama.
The largest individual policy average rate increase was proposed by UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. with a meager rate increase of just 0.55% on average, while VIVA Health requested the largest average rate increase among small group plans at 14.95%.
Health insurance premiums in Alaska are currently set to climb by about 17.1% on average for individual plans and plus 11.71% on average unweighted for small group plans next year.
Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of AK requested the smallest average rate increase for individual policies at 16.26% on average, while UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. requested the smallest average rate increase for small group plans at 8.65%.
Moda Assurance Co. made the largest requested average rate increase for individual plans among carriers at 19.63%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was Moda Health Plan, Inc. with an average premium rate increase of 14.77%.
Insurance carriers requesting rate increases largely attribute the need for those increases to inflation in medical/pharmacy costs and utilization.
Requests to increase premiums for individual and small group health insurance plans through the exchange in 2025 average to about 4.2% for individual plans and about 9.6% for small group plans.
One insurance carrier in Arkansas - QCA Health Plan, Inc. - proposed a decrease of 2% on average for individual policy premiums, while the smallest increase for small group plans was QualChoice Life and Health Ins. Co. Inc. which requested an average rate increase of 4.53%.
USAble HMO Inc. (Octave) requested the largest average rate increase for individual policies at 8.57%. while UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company had the largest small group plan premium rate hike at 15.98%.
Individual and small group health insurance plan premiums via the exchange are currently slated to increase an average of 8.3% in 2025, which is down from 12.4% in 2024. Small group plan rate hike requests average to about 11.9%.
Rate increases were requested by 8 health insurance carriers in Connecticut and are presently under review by the Connecticut Insurance Department, although the public comment period has closed.
CTCare Benefits requested the smallest average rate increase for individual policies at 7.4% while Oxford Health Plans CT had the smallest small group plan premium rate hike at 5.1%.
The largest requested average rate increase for individual plans was made by CTCare Insurance Co. at 12.5%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was Anthem Health Plans with an average premium rate increase of 13.6%.
The carriers making these requests attribute the increases to overall trends, higher than expected COVID-19 expenses, and the unwinding of Medicaid.
Insurance carriers have proposed increasing Individual and small group health insurance plan premiums via the exchange in 2025 by 13.3% and 8%, respectively.
In the individual market, one carrier proposed reducing premiums by 14%, while the smallest rate increase proposal for the group market was Highmark BCBSD at 8%.
Aetna Health requested the largest average rate increase for individual policies at 34.53%. while UnitedHealthcare had the largest small group plan premium rate hike at 18.2%.
Individual and small group health insurance plan premiums are currently slated to increase an average of 6.6% and 9.3% in 2025, respectively.
Mountain Health Co-Op proposed decreasing premiums for individual policies by 2.7% while PacificSource Health Plans requested the smallest premium rate hike among carriers with at least 1% market share for small group plans at 4%.
The largest requested average rate increase for individual plans was made by Regence Blue Shield of Idaho at 11.9%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was UnitedHealth Insurance Co. with an average premium rate increase of 13%.
Carriers are attributing rate increases in Idaho to health claims paid outpacing premiums collected.
Requests to increase premium rates in 2025 for individual health insurance plans in Illinois average to about 4.6%, while the average proposed rate increase to small group plans is an unweighted 9.5%.
Molina Healthcare of IL, Inc. requested the smallest average rate increase for individual policies at 1.6% on average, while MercyCare HMO requested the smallest average rate increase for small group plans at 6.52%, but it is unclear how much market share that MercyCare HMO serves.
Oscar Health Plan, Inc. made the largest requested average rate increase for individual plans among carriers at 19.9%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was Health Alliance Medical Plans, Inc. with an average premium rate increase of 19.9%.
Insurance carriers expect to decrease policy premium expenses for individual health insurance plans through the exchange by an average of - 1.5% in 2025, although the majority of plans are requesting rate increases. Small group plan rates are expected to rise by about 8%.
Coordinated Care Corporation proposed the largest average rate decrease for individual policies at -4.3%, while UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. proposed the smallest increase for small group policies at 6.54%.
Aetna Health inc. requested the largest average premium rate increase request for individual policies at 10.8%, while Physicians Health Plan of N. Indiana proposed the largest average rate hike for small group premiums at 9.45%.
Requests to increase premiums for individual and small group health insurance plans via the exchange in 2025 average to about 14.2% and 14.8%, respectively.
The smallest requested average rate increase for individual plans was made by Taro Health Plan of Maine, Inc. at 3.9%, and the smallest average rate increase for small group plans among carriers with at least 1% market share was United Health Insurance with an average premium rate increase of 5.3%.
Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare requested the largest average rate increase for individual policies at 15.8%. while Maine Community Health Options had the largest small group plan premium rate hike at 19.6%.
Individual exchange-acquired health insurance plan premiums are currently slated to increase an average of 6.7% in 2025 - with average individual policy rate increase requests ranging from 4.7% to 14.2% - while small group premiums are expected to increase by about 6.11%.
CareFirst BlueChoice requested the smallest average rate increase for both individual policies and small group policies at 4.7% and 4.9%, respectively.
CareFirst (GHMSI) and CareFirst of Maryland, Inc. shared the largest average premium rate increase request for individual policies, as well, at 14.2%, while Aetna Life Insurance Co. proposed the largest rate hike for small group premiums at 23%.
Requests to increase premiums for individual and small group exchange health insurance plans in 2025 average to about 8.4%.
Fallon Community Health Plan Inc. requested the smallest average rate increase for both individual and small group policies at 1.4% each.
The largest requested average rate increase for individual plans among carriers with at least 1% market share was made by Tufts Health Public Plans at 10.4%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. with an average premium rate increase of 12.4%.
Rate increases are being attributed primarily to rising hospital and prescription drug costs, although other contributing factors include a population that is aging, risk analysis, general trends, an improved user experience, and use of certain inpatient and outpatient services.
Individual and small group exchange health insurance plan premiums are currently slated to increase an average of 10.5% and 11.2%, respectively, in 2025.
Meridian Health Plan Inc. requested the smallest average rate increase (3.1%) among carriers with at least 1% market share for individual policies, while UnitedHealthInsurance Co. had the smallest small group plan premium rate hike at 4.7%.
Priority Health requested the largest average rate increase for both individual and small group plans was made by Priority Health at 18.89% and 13.2%, respectively.
According to the insurers requesting them, these rate increases are primarily being driven by inflation in medical costs, risk adjustment, changes to plan benefits, and to more accurately reflect past experience.
Individual health insurance plan premiums are preliminarily slated to increase an average of about 8.7% in 2025. Small group plan premium hike requests have an unweighted average of about 9.4%.
Medica Insurance Co. requested the smallest average rate increase for both individual and small group policies at 1.95% and 3.71%, respectively.
The largest requested average rate increase for individual plans was made by Blue Plus (HMO Minnesota) at 12.75%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was Quartz (formerly known as Gundersen) with an average premium rate increase of 15.82%.
Individual health insurance plan premiums are currently slated to increase an average of about 16.2% in 2025 while small group plans are slated to increase by 19%, although rate increase proposals are currently being reviewed by the New York Department of Financial Services and often result in significantly reduced rates from the initial preliminary figures.
UnitedHealthcare of New York requested the smallest average rate increase for individual policies at 8.8% while MVP Health Plan, Inc. had the smallest small group plan premium rate hike at 9.5%.
The largest requested average rate increase for individual plans was made by HIP of Greater New York at 51%, and the largest average rate increase requested for small group plans was Independent Health Benefits Corporation with an average premium rate increase of 28.1%.
The premiums for individual and small group health insurance plans from the exchanges are currently slated to increase an average of 14.9% and 15.1% in 2025, respectively.
For BlueCross Blue Shield plans in Vermont, individual policy rates are expected to climb by 16.3%, while small group rates are expected to climb by 19.1%.
MVP Health Plans are expected to increase between 2.7% and 34.3%, with an average increase of 11.7%.
These rate increases are largely attributed to increased silver loading and premium alignment.
The premiums for individual and small group health insurance plans from the exchanges are currently slated to increase an average of 11.3% in 2025, which are presently under review by the Washington Insurance Department.
Of the 13 health insurance carriers that have filed rate increase requests in Washington, the smallest increase was the Community Health Plan of Washington with a 4.5% increase, and the largest rate increase was requested by Regence Blue Shield which requested an increase of 23.8%.
As a reminder, some of these rate increases are likely still to be slashed by state regulatory bodies, so the sticker shock may not ultimately be as bad in some places as it currently appears to be.
Also, self-funding companies are probably going to see somewhat lower rates than the finalized exchange plan rates on average, which will also help a little on the bottom line.
That said, while there rates are still potentially in flux, the ultimate rate increases tend to correlate fairly strongly with preliminary rates.
On the other hand, these rate increases represent averages across all insurance carriers in a given state (weighted when sufficient data is available), so it is of course a good idea to go ahead and take a look at the premium rate adjustments your insurance carrier is proposing, which may not be final yet but will more accurately reflect the approximate potential rate increases your organization may be facing next year and will help you better prepare in advance for the additional expense.
Nashville, Tenn.– August 20, 2024 – Mployer, the industry-leader in providing employee benefits research, ratings, and reviews, has named over 750 brokerage office winners nationally in more than 50 regions as part of its fourth annual “Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards” for 2024.
Mployer’s Top Employee Benefits Consultant Award Program evaluates each benefits broker and consultant office based on their depth of experience across employer industries, sizes, and plan design features, as well as employer client ratings and reviews.
“We are proud to recognize this distinct group of 2024 top-rated insurance advisors as part of our fourth annual Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards,” said Brian Freeman, CEO of Mployer. “Employer-sponsored healthcare and benefits provide care for over 160M Americans. Who an employer selects as their benefits advisor and their plan design has more impact on employee cost and satisfaction than who an employer chooses as the insurance carrier. We have rated each broker using our proprietary M Score and applaud the winners’ demonstrated commitment to service, quality, and positive employer experience.”
In Tampa, St. Pete, and Sarasota, Mployer has named over 25 benefit brokerages as top brokerages with several of the highest-scoring winners in the market listed below. The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater job markets are among the most competitive in the U.S. Southeast region, employing more than 1.6 million people. Offering competitive employee benefits is a critical factor in hiring top talent for the region’s employers. Finding and partnering with a highly-rated insurance consultant is imperative to attracting and retaining talent in any market.
Several of the “Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards” for Tampa, St. Pete, and Sarasota include:
To see the full list of Top Employee Benefit Consultant Award winners for Tampa, St. Pete, and Sarasota, visit Mployer. The above winners are a snapshot of Mployer's matrices and proprietary M Score as of July 2024.
About Mployer:
Mployer is transforming employee benefits by empowering employers and leading benefit consultants to easily assess, rate, and communicate the value of employee benefits. Providing industry-first transparency through unbiased research, benchmarking, and advanced analytics, our goal is to support employers and brokers in providing benefit plans that optimize costs and employee-employer relationships. To learn more about Mployer, visit https://mployeradvisor.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: Rankings are dynamic, and this report may not reflect the rankings currently listed on Mployer’s website. Because Mployer’s research is ongoing, interested companies that want to join next year’s list are encouraged to claim their free profile on Mployer.
Media Contact:
Anthony Waters
Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from July 2024 that was published in August 2024. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The two-tenths of a percent increase registered last month when the US unemployment rate average climbed from 4.1% to 4.3% was the largest jump we’ve seen in almost a year since the rate spiked from 3.5% to 3.8% between July and August 2023.
In total, 13 states recorded an increase in their state unemployment rate averages over the month of July, led by Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and South Carolina, which all saw their unemployment rates increase by 0.3%.
Connecticut was the only state that saw a reduced unemployment rate last month at minus 0.3%.
The 114 thousand new jobs added last month were about 35% below the predicted numbers, while only 2 states - New York and Oregon - registered a meaningful net addition to the number of payroll entries in each state.
Missouri was the only state last month that recorded a significant net loss in jobs.
Below is the breakdown of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) market employment summary for August 2024.
For 3 months in a row now, Washington DC has had the highest unemployment rate among ‘states’ - up one-tenth of a point from last month to 5.5% - followed by Nevada at 5.4% and California and Illinois at 5.2% unemployment, each.
Washington is the only state that currently has an unemployment rate in the 4% range at 4.9% as of last month, with all the other states coming in in the 3% and 2% unemployment range.
Last month, 13 states saw their unemployment rates climb - Delaware, Georgia, Missouri, and North Dakota each recorded a 0.1% increase; Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, and Utah each recorded a 0.2% increase; and Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and South Carolina each recorded a 0.3% increase in unemployment.
Over the last 12 months, 29 states have seen their unemployment rates increase, led by Rhode Island at plus 1.8%, followed by Ohio and South Carolina at plus 1.1%, and Washington at plus 1.0%.
South Dakota recorded an unemployment rate of 2.0% last month and retains the title of state with the lowest unemployment rate for the 7th month in a row.
Vermont, North Dakota, and New Hampshire posted the next lowest unemployment rates at 2.1%, 2.2%, and 2.5%, respectively.
The only state that recorded a reduction in its unemployment rate was Connecticut, which saw its unemployment rate drop by 0.3% over the month.
Over the last year, only Arizona and Michigan recorded net reductions in their unemployment rates at minus 0.5% and 0.4% each.
Missouri was the only state to record a net decrease in job numbers over the course of July, dropping a little more than 22 thousand jobs and seeing their payrolls in state reduced by 0.7%.
No state recorded a net reduction in jobs over the course of the last year.
Only New York and Oregon saw their payroll figures climb last month. New York added about 41 thousand jobs and Oregon added about 8 thousand jobs, amounting to about a 0.4% increase each.
Over the last 12 months, California has added the most jobs in terms of raw job numbers at plus about 284 thousand, followed by Texas at plus 265 thousand, and Florida at plus 229 thousand.
The largest proportional job increases over the last year have occurred in South Carolina (plus 3.7%), Nevada (plus 3.3%), Alaska plus (3.1%), and Montana (plus 3.0%).
Despite a respectable 100 thousand plus new jobs added to US payrolls last month, the employment data from July renewed a lot of speculation about an imminent economic downturn.
In fact, one of the many metrics used to identify recession known as the Sahm Rule now indicates that we have in fact already entered one - although the accuracy of this metric as applied to the current economic conditions may be less useful than they normally would be as a result of the continuing effects of the COVID dip and recovery.
The stock market saw a steep decline of more than 5% over the first 5 days of the month, as well - which also added fuel to the recession predictors' fire and led to significant speculation that a past-due market correction was at hand.
As of this writing two business weeks later, however, the DOW has recovered 99.5% of the losses in the dip from earlier this month in part due to an influx of cash from retail investors looking to take advantage of some relatively cheaper prices, and a major correction no longer appears to be at hand.
With the Fed set to meet again in just over 4 weeks and most forecasts predicting a quarter to half point cut in baseline interest rates, we may be in a position soon in which an economic downturn looks less likely than it did even just a few weeks ago.
The fact that trends sometimes appear to be shifting in a matter of weeks speaks to a degree of volatility in the current economic climate, however, and with elections coming up in just a couple months in which control of Congress and the presidency are up for grabs, increased volatility is certainly possible if not likely.
We may soon get the opportunity to find out how much of a stabilizing factor the presumed interest rate cut turns out to be, assuming that it comes to pass in September as expected.
Looking for more exclusive content? Check out the Mployer blog.
Understanding what constitutes good benefits is crucial for employee satisfaction and well-being. In this guide, we help you assess your current benefits package or those provided in a job offer. We cover the why, the what, and the how—from vital health insurance details to work-life perks—equipping you with the knowledge to evaluate or negotiate your benefits effectively. Whether you’re considering a new job or reviewing your current offerings, it’s essential to understand how your benefits compare.
Stay informed about important news related to federal benefits, deadlines, and health insurance updates to ensure you don't miss out on crucial information.
Employee benefits are essential for job satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, and can affect overall well-being. Therefore, evaluating comprehensive benefits alongside salary is crucial. Understanding if you are eligible for receiving these benefits is also important.
A complete benefits package typically includes five key components:
The average employee benefits package is worth $15K for singles and $25K for families. It represents a large percentage of compensation and varies greatly by employer.
To properly value your current benefits package or a new job offer, compare it with industry standards, calculate its monetary value, and assess how well it meets your personal needs. Mployer provides online, easy-to-use tools for employees and employers to do just that, as well as information to help you better understand how it all works together.
Employee benefits are more than just perks; they’re a critical part of the employment relationship, ensuring job satisfaction and fostering loyalty and retention. Employers also support job seekers through specialized services and programs tailored to various demographics. Benefits account for over 20% of an employee’s total compensation. That’s a significant chunk! So, when weighing a job offer or thinking about your current job, it’s crucial to consider not just the paycheck but also the following benefits and perks that come with it. Considering these factors will give you a more comprehensive understanding of your total compensation package.
Before we delve into the evaluation, let’s first understand the key components of a great benefits package. These components include:
Comprehensive coverage for medical care is crucial in a benefits package, ensuring that employees have access to necessary healthcare services and compliance with regulations.
Remember, the value of these benefits is dependent on your personal life and career stage, making a big difference in how you perceive them and the pay you receive.
Health insurance is a cornerstone of any benefits package. Employers must evaluate their contribution towards health insurance carefully. Individual coverage contributions typically range from 70% to 90%, while family coverage contributions range from 55% to 85%.
Large employers often have the advantage of negotiating better rates with insurance providers due to their higher volume of employees. This can result in more comprehensive health insurance plans for employees. When evaluating health insurance options, consider the following:
Ancillary benefits, including dental, vision, disability, and life insurance, are essential additions to any benefits package. These benefits may seem like minor perks, but they can add significant value for employees. For example, dental and vision insurance can cover routine care and major procedures, while disability and life insurance provide financial security in case of unexpected events.
Paid time off (PTO) and paid holidays are crucial for maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Employers should offer competitive PTO policies, considering both industry standards and employee needs.
Retirement savings plans, such as 401(k)s, are essential components of a good benefits package. Employers should offer competitive match rates and plan features, such as auto-enrollment and auto-escalation. These features encourage employees to save for the future and ensure that they are financially prepared for retirement.
Work-life balance perks, such as flexible schedules and employee assistance programs, play a crucial role in supporting employee well-being. These perks help employees manage their work and personal responsibilities, leading to higher job satisfaction and productivity.
Employers should regularly evaluate their benefits packages to ensure they meet industry standards and employee needs. Using tools like Mployer’s benefits calculator can help employers assess the monetary value of their benefits and compare them with industry peers. By understanding the full value of their benefits, employers can make informed decisions and negotiate better offerings for their employees.
Providing a comprehensive and competitive benefits package is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. Regularly evaluating and adjusting your offerings to meet employee needs and industry standards can make a significant difference in employee satisfaction and retention. By ensuring your benefits package is robust, you can create a positive work environment that supports employee well-being and productivity.
Stay informed about important news related to federal benefits, deadlines, and health insurance updates to ensure you are always up-to-date with crucial information.
Health insurance is often the most valued part of any benefits package. Not only does it provide essential health care coverage, but it also significantly impacts overall job satisfaction. When evaluating health insurance options, consider the coverage network, plan details, and employer contributions. Large employers often provide more comprehensive health insurance plans due to their larger budgets and ability to negotiate better rates with insurance providers. Health insurance is a critical component of employee benefits that requires careful evaluation and planning.
In addition to health insurance, offering Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) can be a significant perk. HSAs allow employees to save money tax-free for medical expenses. These accounts can cover out-of-pocket costs, making health care more affordable. HSAs are particularly beneficial for employees with high-deductible health plans, providing a financial cushion for medical expenses. Including HSAs in your benefits package can enhance its overall value and appeal.
Paid time off (PTO) and paid holidays are crucial for maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Employers should offer competitive PTO policies, considering both industry standards and employee needs. Consolidated leave packages, which combine vacation and sick leave, are becoming increasingly popular. These packages provide flexibility and can contribute significantly to employee satisfaction. Paid time off and holidays are essential for promoting employee well-being and productivity.
Retirement savings plans, such as 401(k)s, are essential components of a good benefits package. Employers should offer competitive match rates and plan features, such as auto-enrollment and auto-escalation. These features encourage employees to save for the future and ensure that they are financially prepared for retirement. Evaluating the match
What are the key components of a good benefits package? A good benefits package should include health insurance, ancillary benefits, retirement plans, paid time off, and other perks like flexible schedules and childcare assistance. These components can help employees feel supported and valued in the workplace.
How do I evaluate the quality of health insurance? To evaluate the quality of health insurance, consider factors such as premiums, deductibles, copays, coinsurance, network coverage, tax strategy approach, and the employer's contribution. These factors play a key role in determining the overall quality of the insurance plan.
How can I calculate the monetary value of my benefits package? The easy way is to use Mployer's free calculator. The complicated way to calculate the monetary value of your benefits package is to sum the annual employer costs for each benefit. You can also divide that total value by your annual salary to express benefits as a percentage of your salary. This will give you a clear understanding of the value of your benefits package.
How can I negotiate better benefits? To negotiate better benefits, start with your job offer. Research, prepare, prioritize your needs, and effectively communicate your value to the employer. Approach the negotiations with confidence and respect for a successful outcome.
What online tools can I use to evaluate benefits? Mployer provides a simple calculator to grade and value your benefits. Other sites provide summary information if you want to do research, such as Glassdoor, PayScale, or Indeed. Mployer is the only platform available to compare benefits packages, which include calculators and rating systems to make an informed decision.
Nashville, Tenn.– August 6, 2024 – Mployer, the industry-leader in providing employee benefits research, ratings, and reviews, has named over 750 brokerage office winners nationally in more than 50 regions as part of its fourth annual “Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards” for 2024.
Mployer’s Top Employee Benefits Consultant Award Program evaluates each benefits broker and consultant office based on their depth of experience across employer industries, sizes, and plan design features, as well as employer client ratings and reviews.
“We are proud to recognize this distinct group of 2024 top-rated insurance advisors as part of our fourth annual Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards,” said Brian Freeman, CEO of Mployer. “Employer-sponsored healthcare and benefits provide care for over 160M Americans. Who an employer selects as their benefits advisor and their plan design has more impact on employee cost and satisfaction than who an employer chooses as the insurance carrier. We have rated each broker using our proprietary M Score and applaud the winners’ demonstrated commitment to service, quality, and positive employer experience.”
In Chicago, Illinois, Mployer has named over 50 benefit brokerages as top brokerages with several of the highest-scoring winners in the market listed below. The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI job markets are among the most competitive in the U.S. Midwest region, employing more than 4.8 million people. Offering competitive employee benefits is a critical factor in hiring top talent for the region’s employers. Finding and partnering with a highly-rated insurance consultant is imperative to attracting and retaining talent in any market.
Several of the “Top Employee Benefits Consultant Awards” for Chicago, Illinois include:
To see the full list of Top Employee Benefit Consultant Award winners for Chicago, Illinois, visit Mployer. The above winners are a snapshot of Mployer's matrices and proprietary M Score as of July 2024.
About Mployer:
Mployer is transforming employee benefits by empowering employers and leading benefit consultants to easily assess, rate, and communicate the value of employee benefits. Providing industry-first transparency through unbiased research, benchmarking, and advanced analytics, our goal is to support employers and brokers in providing benefit plans that optimize costs and employee-employer relationships. To learn more about Mployer, visit https://mployeradvisor.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: Rankings are dynamic, and this report may not reflect the rankings currently listed on Mployer’s website. Because Mployer’s research is ongoing, interested companies that want to join next year’s list are encouraged to claim their free profile on Mployer.
Media Contact:
Anthony Waters
Key Takeaways:
ARTICLE | The Employers' Guide To Ozempic and GLP-1 Drugs
The meteoric rise of Ozempic has been widely documented.
More than just the traditional drug marketing via billboards, commercials, and pamphlets at primary care offices, some of the most heavily publicized evidence of Ozempic’s effectiveness has been found on magazine covers, streaming platforms, and in social media feeds, all providing the kind of organic promotion that even huge sums of money can’t (always) buy.
While to some it may seem like a miracle drug - with potential health benefits including blood sugar regulation, cardiovascular issue risk reduction, and of course weight loss - there is, it seems, at least one catch - Ozempic is very expensive.
The sudden surge in demand as a result of Ozempic’s success has left manufacturers scrambling to keep up, which has contributed to soaring prices and in turn sent employers and insurance providers struggling to adapt to the rapid rise in popularity of a drug that can cost more than $1,000 per person per month.
Not all employers are addressing that tension between the growing employee demand and the accompanying growing expense in the same way, however, and in this piece we’ll take a look at some of those potential approaches as well as some of the potential costs and benefits associated with each.
Ozempic is a type of drug known as a GLP-1, which is a relatively new class of drugs that first gained approval from the FDA in 2005.
There are currently at least 10 different GLP-1 drugs, but treating diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and/or weight loss seem to be fairly consistent among them, although new uses such as treating kidney disease are still being explored.
Ozempic was approved by the FDA as a diabetes medication in the final month of 2017 before hitting the market in earnest the following year, but it wasn’t too long before users and their doctors started taking note of the weight loss side-effect.
Nearly 20 thousand Ozempic prescriptions were written in 2018, which grew to just over 60 thousand active prescriptions in 2019, 100 thousand in 2020, and 160 thousand in 2021.
But in 2022, Ozempic seems to have crossed the tipping point, with prescriptions doubling to more than 300 thousand over the year before then growing by another 25% - up to about 375 thousand - within the first couple of months of 2023, which is the most recent data available.
Collectively, prescriptions for Ozempic and its GLP-1 weight loss drug competitors have grown by more than 300% over the last 3 years with total US sales growing from less than $5 billion at the end of 2020 to more than $15 billion at the end of 2023.
According to a Gallup poll released at the end of May 2024, more than 15.5 million people in the US had used one of these drugs for weight loss - representing 6% of the US population and counting.
According to the Pew Research Center, about 3 in 4 Americans are either overweight or obese based on current medical classifications, and that number has been growing pretty consistently for a quite awhile.
As a result, the target market of potential Ozempic, et al. weight loss users is considerably larger than the (still substantial) 30 plus million Americans with type 2 diabetes, and although the resulting Ozempic shortages are certainly more problematic for the latter group, any sufficiently substantial surge in demand will make the price goes up for everyone.
While the company that produces Ozempic has plans in the works to build a more than 4 billion dollar factory in order to improve production capacity, any release of demand pressure as a result of the increased accessibility of the drug is still likely several years away at least.
Further, that patent on Ozempic will prevent the production and sale of cheaper generic alternatives until at least 2031 in the US, so no short-term cost-saving hope on that front either.
Given these market conditions, Ozempic-comparable weight loss drugs are likely to continue costing upwards of 15 thousand dollars per patient per year for the foreseeable future.
For employers, those costs, which essentially were non-existent just a handful of years ago before doctors started prescribing GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, accounted for 8.9% of total employer health care spending in 2023 according to a survey from the International Foundation of Employee Benefits - up from 6.9% of total employer health care expenses the year before.
At those prices in the face of near-exponential demand growth, it is not hard to understand why multiple health systems have chosen to drop or reduce weight-loss-based GLP-1 coverage from their employer-sponsored plans, including Hennepin Health Care, University of Texas Health System, and the Mayo Clinic.
At the same time, however, other employers and health systems are looking past the sticker shock and weighing the totality of health benefits that can accompany weight loss in the cost-benefit analysis, including potential reversal of diabetes, cardiovascular improvements, reduced incidence of certain cancers, and improved arthritic conditions.
After looking at those net benefits, a growing number of companies including Elevance Health, Kaiser Permanente, and CVS Health are expanding coverage and concluding that it is worth paying the high ticket price of GLP-1 medication for improved patient outcomes and the expectation of reduced expenses in the long run.
In terms of proportional breakdown, those employers who see the value in GLP-1-assisted weight loss are still in the minority, but they have the momentum on their side, with the percentage of employers covering Ozempic or a comparable drug for weight loss purposes rising to 34% in 2023, up from 28% in 2022.
Further, larger businesses are even more likely to adopt GLP-1 weight loss coverage according to the head of Cigna’s health services business, who also noted that 50% of the employers utilizing their pharmacy benefits management system already cover GLP-1 weight loss uses, and that figure is inching up.
For those employers who are not yet ready to buy-in completely on the long-term benefits or for whom full coverage of Ozempic and comparable drugs for weight loss purposes is economically infeasible in the short-term, there are still several measures that can be taken in order to minimize the risk of runaway costs while still providing employees with a meaningful option.
The appetite for these drugs among employees is likely to continue growing, especially as new treatments and functions emerge (i.e. treating kidney disease), which will likely keep the costs relatively inflated in the short term even as new production capacity comes online.
In the long run, however, short term price inflation may be a small price to pay relative to the long-term benefits that can potentially come from a reduced risk of obesity-related illnesses that go well beyond cost savings, and that’s true for both employers and employees.
But more than just putting upward pressure on the price, that demand reflects health care that is both expensive and increasingly sought after by a large portion of the talent pool, so there’s also an opportunity here to differentiate your organization from the competition in terms of employee attraction and retention.
Although some employers are moving away from Ozempic and other GLP-1 coverage to curb those growing expenses, there are more employers moving in the opposite direction and opening up coverage, and absent an unforeseen change in circumstances, that trend is unlikely to reverse course anytime soon.
Key Takeaways
ARTICLE | Top 25 States With Most Employee-Friendly Paid Leave Laws (Part 2)
In part 1 of this 2 part series, we took a look at the 25 states with the most employer-friendly laws and regulations in terms of the circumstances in which the state may require some or all employers to provide some or all employees with paid leave.
In this piece, we’ll review the paid leave rules in the remaining 25 states that have more employee-friendly laws and regulations, which includes a much wider spectrum of regulatory involvement, ranging from a relatively minor paid leave requirements that don’t go much beyond what is required in the states covered in Part 1, all the way up to substantial, robust paid leave mandates and worker protections.
Arizona paid leave law requires private employers with $500,000 or more in annual revenues to provide their employees with one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.
For employers that have more than 15 or more employees, those employees can accrue up to 40 hours of sick leave per year, while the employees of employers with fewer than 15 employees can accrue a maximum of 24 hours of paid sick leave per year.
Employers can require employees to wait up to 90 days after the start of their employment before they can use any paid sick leave that has accrued, and employers are not required to pay out any accrued PSL upon termination, employees are allowed to roll over paid sick leave from one year to the next.
Arizona employers are also required to provide up to 3 hours of paid leave to enable employees to vote in any municipal, county, state, or federal primary or general election if those employees do not already have 3 consecutive hours available to them when the polls are open and they are not required to be at work.
California enacted one of the more robust paid sick leave policies among states, requiring pretty much all employers - with few exceptions, such as railroad companies and airlines - to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick leave each year to their employees, even part-time and temporary workers, who have worked at least 30 days out of the first year of their employment. While employees begin accruing pid sick leave as soon as they begin working, accruing at 1 hour of paid sick leave for every hour worked, employees are not legally allowed to use the accrued leave until they have been on the job for at least 90 days.
California state law doesn’t require employers to offer either paid or unpaid vacations, but if an employer chooses to offer PTO, then any unused hours (not including unused paid sick leave) must eventually be paid out with the employee’s last paycheck.
Further, while California employers are required to allow employees to roll over unused PTO days, as well as up to 80 hours of paid sick leave, they do have significant leeway in determining how many consecutive PTO days an employee can use, preventing employees from using PTO on certain dates, and implementing notice requirements that must be met before leave will be granted.
California law entitles employees to 8 weeks of paid family leave at between 60% to 70% of employee’s income, up to $1,620 each week in 2024, although importantly this leave is not necessarily job-protected, though other state and federal laws may protect an employees job in this situation nonetheless. State Disability Insurance can also be used as support for up to 1 year with weekly payouts of between 60% -90% of income, capped at $1,325 per week.
California employees who don’t otherwise have time to vote also get up to 2 paid hours for voting leave if they provide their employers with at least 3 days’ notice of their intent to be away from their job for the purpose of voting.
Colorado state law requires all employers to provide paid sick leave, which accrues at a rate of one hour of paid sick leave for every hour worked. That accrued sick leave can be capped at 48 hours per year, but Colorado law requires employers to allow employees to roll over unused paid sick leave from one year to another.
Colorado employees who earn at least $2,500 per year and have been on the job for at least 180 days are entitled to up to 12 weeks of family leave with partial pay, which can include up to an additional 4 weeks of paid parental leave in the event of pregnancy and/or childbirth complications.
And while Colorado state law does not require employers to offer paid vacation time, Colorado does require employers to pay out any unused PTO in the event that the employee leaves the company.
Colorado law also requires employers to pay employees $50 per day for the first 3 days of jury duty service, after which the state will take over jury service compensation.
Finally, for any employee whose shift starts less than 3 hours after the polls open or ends less than three hours before the polls close, employers must offer up to 2 hours of PTO so that employees can exercise their right to vote, and while employers can choose when an employee votes during the middle of a shift, if the employee requests to vote at the beginning or end of a shift, the employer is obligated to honor that request.
Connecticut law requires employers who had averaged at least 50 employees at some point in the prior year, to provide paid sick leave to employees who work at least 10 hours a week, which accrues at a rate of 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked for up to 40 hour per year, which can be rolled over to the next year if unused. Paid sick leave hours begin accruing immediately, but can not be used until an employee has worked 680 hours on the job. These rules cover most employees, but exceptions include employees who are exempt from overtime and minimum wage rules in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Paid family and medical leave is available to most Connecticut employees (including many sole proprietors and self-employed people) for up to 12 weeks per year (with a potential additional 2 weeks in the event of medical complication) so long as the employee has earned at least $2,325 in one of the previous four quarters, is currently employed, and has been employed for the preceding 12 weeks. Qualifying employees can receive up to 95% of their typical income with a cap set at 60 times the state’s minimum wage, currently $15.69 per hour.
Further, for the first 5 days of an employee’s jury duty service, Connecticut law requires employers to pay employees $50 per day before the state then takes over those payments.
While Connecticut voters had been entitled since 2021 to 2 hours of paid time off to vote in special elections and standard elections for state and federal representatives should they request that time off at least 2 days in advance, those rules are set to expire at the end of June 2024, after which time the voting paid time off requirement will no longer be valid absent the intervention of Connecticut lawmakers.
Delaware currently has no laws in effect with regard to paid time off requirements, but beginning January 1, 2026, employees who have worked at least 1,250 hours for an employer over the past year are eligible for up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave at a rate equivalent to the lesser of $900 per week or 80% of the employee’s weekly pay.
Georgia state law requires employers with 25 or more employees to allow those employees who work at least 30 hours per week to accrue up to 5 paid sick leave days per calendar year that can be used to care for close family members in need.
Hawaii state law allows for partial paid leave via Temporary Disability Insurance, which requires that an employee has worked in Hawaii for 14 or more weeks and has worked at least 20 hours and earned at least $400 in each of those weeks, although the weeks need not be in a row and can be spread among multiple employers. Employees can receive up to 67% of their average weekly wages, with a cap that’s currently set around $700 per week.
While pregnancy and childbirth applications of the temporary disability insurance program usually last between 4 and 6 weeks, the disability insurance generally is available for up to 6 months.
Hawaiian employees that don’t already have 2 consecutive hours when they are off work and polls are open are also entitled to up to 2 hours of paid voting leave, though employers can require proof that the employee voted.
Illinois state law entitles employees with 1 hour of flex leave for every 40 hours worked (capped at 40 hours per year) that can be used for any purpose. Employees must, however, wait 90 days after their leave time has begun accruing before they can exercise it, and employers are allowed to require 7 days notice before accrued leave can be used and can set a minimum leave usage increment of at least 2 hours.
Whether or not employees are allowed to roll over unused leave depends on whether employers have front-loaded leave (i.e. provided a pro rated 40 hours on the first day of the year to all employees, in which case employee leave does roll over from one year to the next) or whether employees accrue their hours of leave one at a time - 1 hour of leave for every 40 hours worked as described in the preceding paragraph - in which case leave does roll over.
Further, while Illinois does not provide for paid sick leave statewide, Cook County and the city of Chicago both have laws in place guaranteeing paid sick leave for employees who have been with their employer for at least 6 months, worked at least 2 hours within the city/county over the last 2 weeks, and have worked at least 80 hours within the last 120 days. Paid sick leave for qualifying employees accrues at 1 hour for every 40 hours worked, capped at 40 hours annually.
Employees in Illinois are also entitled to up to 2 hours of paid leave in order to vote if their schedule does not already provide for 2 consecutive hours off work during which the polls are open.
While Illinois does not require most unused leave to be paid out upon termination, if leave has been specifically granted as PTO or vacation, then employers must compensate employees for it when an employee leaves the company.
Louisiana employers are not required to provide paid vacation time, but those employers that choose to offer such PTO are required to pay out any unused time at the conclusion of employment if the employee is eligible for a vacation at that time of their departure according to company policy.
Louisiana employers also must provide employees with one day’s wages on the employee’s first day of jury duty.
Maine law requires that most employers provide employees with 1 hour of paid leave for every 40 hours worked, capped at 40 hours per year - although there are exceptions including employers with fewer than 10 employees and employees that are seasonal or commission-based.
If employers front-load employee paid leave banks to 40 hours at the start of each year (or at the start of an individual new employee’s employment) then that leave is not required to roll over, but if the leave is accrued, then roll over is mandated by law. Employers must also pay out any unused leave at the conclusion of an employee’s employment.
Maryland state law requires employers to provide 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, capped at 40 hours per year, to employees who have worked for the employer at least 12 hours per week for 15 weeks, although the law excludes employees under the age of 18, independent contract workers, seasonal agricultural workers, and those operating under collective bargaining agreements. Further, unused leave can roll over but the bank is capped at 64 hours accumulated total. Employees who work at least 8 hours each week in Montgomery County have their annual sick leave accrual cap set at 56 hours.
For employers with 15 or more employees that do provide paid leave, the Maryland Flexible Leave act provides for paid time off in the event of an illness or death of an immediate family member, as well.
Maryland employers are also required to provide at least 2 hours of paid voting leave if an employee’s schedule does not already provide for 2 consecutive non-working hours when polls are open.
Massachusetts state law does not require employers to provide paid vacation leave, but employers who have adopted such a policy are required to pay out any unused time when the employee leaves the company.
Massachusetts employees earn 1 hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked - capped at 40 hours per year and unusable until the employee has been on the job for at least 90 days - which can be utilized to take care of themselves and/or close family members dealing with physical or mental illness. Employers are allowed to require 7 days notice for appointments that are scheduled in advance, and can also opt to allow employee paid sick leave to accrue on a statutorily-set lump-sum schedule if they don’t want to track the hours worked of individual employees. Employers in Massachusetts also have the option of front-loading paid sick leave for their employees, in which case roll over isn’t required, but roll over is mandated when the leave is accrued.
Massachusetts employees are also entitled to up to 12 weeks of paid family leave and 20 weeks of paid medical leave which can combine to amount to as many as 26 weeks of paid leave in a year.
Further, Massachusetts employers are required to pay out up to 3 days of jury duty leave.
Michigan state employers and private employers with 50 or more employees must provide paid sick leave to employees who work at least 25 hours a week for at least 26 weeks a year, which accrues at a rate of 1 hour of leave for every 35 hours worked, capped at 40 hours per year and can roll over from one year to the next if unused. Employees, however, are not allowed to use accrued leave until their 90th day on the job. Employees exempted from these paid sick leave requirements include workers operating under collective bargaining agreements or those exempt from minimum wage and overtime regulations.
Minnesota employees who worked at least 80 hours over the last year in Minnesota can accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, capped at 48 hours per year - but that paid leave doesn’t become available to employees until they’ve been on the job for 90 days. Unused hours also roll over from one year to the next, capped at 80 hours.
4 cities in Minnesota - Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, and Bloomington - each have additional paid sick laws that go further than the statewide paid sick leave requirements.
Minnesota employers are also required to allow employees paid leave so they can vote, though no minimum or maximum lengths of time for that leave are specified.
Nebraska employers are not required to provide any paid vacation leave, but if they do offer such PTO, employers are required to pay out for any PTO that remains unused when an employee leaves the company. Nebraska state law also specifically forbids Nebraska employers from enacting use-it-or-lose-it policies with regard to earned leave, so Nebraska employees are entitled to be paid out for any remaining unused leave at the conclusion of their employment.
Nebraska law also requires employers to provide paid leave for jury duty, and 2 consecutive hours of paid leave to vote in municipal, country, state, and federal primaries and general elections if the employees schedule does not already allow for 2 consecutive off-duty hours during polling hours, though employers retain the right to determine during which hours eligible employees are allowed paid leave in order to vote.
Nevada employers with 50 or more employees must provide flex leave time that can be used for any purpose, which employees acquire at a rate of 0.01923 hours of paid leave per hour worked, which is about 1 hour of paid leave for every 52 hours worked. The law doesn’t apply to temporary, seasonal, and on-call workers, and employers can exempt themselves from the law by providing a flat 40 hours of paid time off each year to each eligible employee. Employers who have been in operation for less than 2 years are also exempt.
Further, Nevada state law doesn’t cap the amount of PTO that employees can accrue, but it does allow employers to limit the amount that employees can use to as little as 40 hours in a benefit year. Employees must also work for 90 days before they are able to use any of the accrued PTO.
Employers are required to provide paid leave for employees to vote, as well: 1 hour of paid leave if the polling place is less than 2 miles away, 3 hours of paid leave if the polling place is more than 10 miles away, and 2 hours of paid leave otherwise.
New Jersey law mandates that employees earn 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked capped at 40 hours per year, and employees must be on the job for 120 days before utilizing any accrued paid leave. Further, employees are entitled to roll over from one year to the next up to 40 hours of unused paid sick leave, but employers can require up to 7 days notice for appointments and can require reasonable documentation for absences that last 3 or more days in a row.
New Jersey state law also enables employees to take up to 12 weeks per year of flexible paid family leave, which is funded by the New Jersey Family Leave Insurance Program via payroll deductions.
New Mexico state law entitles employees to 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, capped at 64 hours per year, which employees can roll over from one year to the next.
New Mexico does not require PTO accrual, but if an employer adopts a policy of providing PTO and allowing earned/unused hours to accrue, then unused time off must be paid out when the employee leaves the company.
Employers in New Mexico must also allow employees 2 hours to vote if polls are not open for 2 hours prior to the start of a shift of 3 hours after the end of a shift.
New York employers that have between 0 and 4 employees and more than $1 million in revenue and New York employers that have between 5 and 99 employees regardless of revenue must provide employees with 40 hours of paid sick leave per year, accrued at 1 hour of leave for every 30 hours worked. New York employers with 100 or more employees must provide 56 hours of paid sick leave each year.
New York employees are also entitled to 12 weeks of paid family leave per year after they have completed at least 26 weeks in a row of at least 20 hours of work per week. Those leave payments are typically covered through insurance and provide up to 67% of an employee’s average weekly salary, capped at 67% of the statewide average weekly salary, which currently puts the cap at about $1,068 per week.
New York employees are also entitled to collect up to 26 weeks of short-term disability (or 4 to 6 weeks for disability as a result of pregnancy and/or childbirth), but these disability payments are only available during times when an employee is actually, physically unable to perform the job.
New York state law also requires that employers with more than 10 employees must pay $40 dollars a day for each of the first 3 days of an employee’s jury duty service.
New York employees that don’t have 4 consecutive hours during which to vote are also entitled up to 2 hours of paid voting leave, but employees must notify their employers between 2 and 10 days before their planned voting absence, and employers can choose what time the voting leave is exercised.
Oregon employers are not required to provide paid vacation leave, but if they choose to offer it and their employment policies and contracts don’t specifically absolve employers of the responsibility to pay out unused PTO at the conclusion of employment, then employers are required to make those payouts when an employee parts ways with the employer.
Oregon employers with 10 or more employees are required to provide paid sick leave at a rate of 1 hour earned for every 30 hours worked, which is capped at 40 hours per year that can be rolled over to the next year when unused (unless the leave is front-loaded), but any accrued leave can not be used until the employee has worked at least 90 days.
Oregon employees are also entitled to up to 12 weeks per year of paid family/medical/safe leave via a social insurance program.
Rhode Island state law requires employers to pay out any unused PTO upon termination if the employee has been on the job for at least 1 year.
Rhode Island employers that have 18 or more employees are required to provide paid sick leave at a rate of 1 hour for every 35 hours worked (capped at 40 hours per year and capable of roll over from one year to the next), which accrue immediately upon commencement of work but can not be used for the first 90 days of employment.
Rhode Island employees are also entitled to up to 30 weeks of temporary disability insurance and up to 6 weeks of temporary caregiver insurance, each offering up to about $1000 per week.
Tennessee employers with 5 or more employees are required to provide paid leave for jury duty service, though employees must show their employer their jury summons on the day they receive their jury summons or the day after receiving summons in order to be eligible, and employers can deduct any payment received from the court from the wages owed to the employee.
Tennessee employers are also required to provide up to 3 consecutive hours of paid vote leave to any employee that does not already have 3 consecutive hours off work when the polls are open. In order to qualify, employees must request paid voting leave by 12pm on the day prior to Election Day.
Tennessee state employees and some metropolitan employees also are eligible for up to 6 weeks of paid family leave.
Utah employers are not required to provide PTO, but if they do they must explicitly make clear their policy of not paying out unused PTO upon termination, otherwise unused PTO must be paid out when an employee is terminated.
Utah employees that don’t already have at least 3 hours off during polling hours are entitled to 2 hours of paid voting leave, provided that they give their employer at least 1 day of advanced notice, and employers may still choose when the leave is exercised.
Vermont employees earn 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 52 hours worked, capped at 40 hours per year which can be rolled over from 1 year to the next if unused, but employees may have to wait up to 1 year before utilizing accrued leave. In order to be eligible, however, employees must be at least 18 years old, must have worked at least 20 weeks in the last year, and must have averaged 18 hours per week over the year, as well.
Washington employers are required to provide employees with paid sick leave that accrues at a rate of 1 hour earned for every 40 hours worked, with up to 40 hours capable of being rolled over from one year to the next. Employees may have to wait 90 days before utilizing the accrued leave, at the employer's discretion.
The city of Seattle expands upon the statewide paid sick leave rules by allowing the employees of employers that employ between 50 and 259 employees to roll over 56 hours of accrued paid sick leave per year, while employees of employers with 250 or more employees can roll over up to 72 hours per year of unused leave.
Washington state law also provides for a paid family leave insurance program that enables employees to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave for many family and medical events including childbirth under normal circumstances, and up to 18 weeks given certain qualifying events.
While the range of regulatory involvement with regard to paid leave varies considerably between states, the bars set by state rulemakers can tend to be on the low-side relative to the actual paid leave benefits offered by companies within those states.
Even in states with no paid leave requirements whatsoever, industry and regional/intra-state norms often set standards that many if not most applicable employers follow, and those norms can sometimes go beyond the heftier mandates laid out by some of the states with more comprehensive regulation, as well.
As a result, in order to maintain a more complete picture of both best practices and talent expectations, it is important to keep up with a changing regulatory environment, both on the state and federal level, as well as benchmarking against comparable employers in the same industry and/or region.
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Key Takeaways
ARTICLE | Top 25 States With Most Employer-Friendly Paid Leave Laws
Last month, we covered the rising popularity and prevalence of consolidated and unlimited leave policies relative to non-consolidated leave policies, which have now nearly become a minority policy among US employers.
These policy choices and changes do not occur in a vacuum, however, and can be significantly impacted by both industry and geographic norms as well as governmental rules and regulations, which can sometimes vary widely from one state, county, and municipality to another.
While data on the geographic distribution of leave policy structure can be found in our benchmarking reports, available on mployeradvisor.com, this piece will be the first in a pair of articles that will highlight major differences in the rules governing paid leave from state to state in the US, compiled from information primarily from Vacation Tracker and Paycom.
This piece will cover the 25 states that provide the most leeway for employers to determine their own policies with regard to providing employees with paid leave.
Alabama state paid leave law requires only that employers provide their employees with paid leave for jury duty if the employee provides notice of jury duty summons within one business day of receiving the summons. Further, that PTO for jury duty service must not reduce the amount of PTO an employee may have otherwise accrued, although employers are permitted to deduct the amount paid to the employee by the court from any amount the employer owes the employee.
Alaska state paid leave law requires employers to provide employees with paid voting leave in order to cast ballots in municipal, county, state, and federal primary and general elections if that employee’s shift starts earlier than 2 hours after the polls open or ends later than 1 hour before the polls close. While the employee is to be given sufficient time to enable them to vote, the employer gets to determine the hour(s) when the employee leaves work to cast their vote.
While Arkansas provides no mandatory paid leave for private employees in the state beyond what the policies and contract requirements set by the employers themselves, state law does allow public employees paid sick leave for illness, injury, and the death or illness of a close family member. Those public employees can accrue up to 30 days (depending on employee tenure) of paid sick leave every year.
Arkansas state law also requires state employers to provide paid leave for jury duty, but no similar requirement exists for private employers, although private employers are prohibited from requiring an employee to use vacation or other leave in order to fulfill their jury duty requirements.
Florida state law imposes no obligations on employers with regard to paid leave for employees.
Idaho state law entitles state employees to up to 8 weeks of paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child, but no similar requirement for private employers exists unless the private employer has adopted or contracted to provide such a policy.
Indiana state law makes no requirements for employers to provide employees with paid leave.
Iowa provides for some paid vacation leave for state employees, but there is no similar requirement for the employees of private employers.
Further, employees who do not have 3 consecutive hours off work during which time polls are open are entitled to up to 3 hours of paid leave in order to cast their votes, though employers have the right to determine which 3 hours are made available to their employees.
Kansas has no formal state laws requiring paid leave, although internal leave policies adopted by companies may be legally enforceable against employers if they rise to the level of a “promise.”
Kansas employers must, however, provide employees with up to 2 consecutive hours to vote (including employee non-working hours when the polls are open) and the timing of which the employer has the right to determine.
In Kentucky, employers are not required to offer paid leave for vacation, but if they do offer such paid leave, it is considered essentially equivalent to wages and must be dealt with accordingly - in this case meaning any unused leave of this sort must be paid out when an employee leaves the company.
Further, while Kentucky doesn’t require paid family leave to employees upon the birth of a child, if an employer does provide paid maternity/paternity leave, they must also make those provisions available to newly adoptive parents.
Mississippi state law imposes no obligations on employers with regard to paid leave for employees.
Missouri employers are required to provide 3 hours of paid voting leave if employees schedules do not already allow for 3 consecutive non-working hours when the polls are open.
Montana state law imposes no obligations on employers with regard to paid leave for employees.
New Hampshire state law imposes no obligations on employers with regard to paid leave for employees, although there is an optional paid family and medical leave insurance program that employers can opt into.
Although North Carolina state law doesn’t require employers to provide paid vacation time, if employers choose to do so and don’t specifically state as a matter of policy or contract that unused PTO will not be paid out when the employee leaves the company, then NC employers are required to make those payouts at the conclusion of employment.
While North Dakota state law doesn’t mandate PTO, employers who choose to offer it are required to pay out unused PTO upon the conclusion of employment, although there are a few exceptions. Employers are not required to pay out unused PTO if the employee does not provide at least 5 days notice prior to their departure or if an employee has been on the job for less than 1 year. Also, employers can provide written notice at the start of their employment that any unused PTO will not be paid out, in which case the employer is not required to pay out unused time.
Although Ohio employers are not required to provide paid vacation time, if they do offer paid vacation and employment policy and contracts don’t specifically make it clear that unused PTO will not be paid out when an employee leaves the company, then employers are required to pay out for unused PTO when the employ departs the organization for whatever reason.
Oklahoma employees are entitled to 2 hours of paid voting leave (and more than 2 hours if their commute to polling place and work would reasonably require it), but employees are required to provide at least 1 day notice to their employer regarding their absence.
Pennsylvania employers are not required to provide paid sick leave in general, but employers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Allegheny County are required to provide employees with paid sick leave.
In Philadelphia, employers with 10 or more employees must provide paid sick leave to employees, which accrues at a rate of 1 hour earned for every 40 hours worked up to 40 hours, which aren’t usable until the employee has been on the job for 90 days.
In Pittsburgh, employees earn 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 35 hours worked, capped at 24 hours per year for employers with fewer than 10 employees and capped at 40 hours total for employers with 10 or more employees.
Allegheny County employers with 26 or more employees must provide them with 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 35 hours worked, capped at 40 hours.
South Carolina state law places no paid leave requirements on employers.
South Dakota employers are required to provide any employee that doesn’t already have 2 consecutive hours off duty when the polls are open with 2 hours of paid vote leave, although the employer can set the time during which the leave is exercised.
Texas employees who notify their employer in advance and who don’t already have 2 consecutive hours off work during polling hours are entitled to a reasonable amount of paid voting leave.
Virginia state law limits paid sick leave requirements to home health care workers who work an average of 20 hours per week or 90 hours per month. Qualifying employees accrue paid sick leave at a rate of 1 hour earned for every 30 hours worked, capped at 40 hours per year and capable of being rolled over from year to year unless the sick leave was frontloaded.
West Virginia employees who don’t already have 3 consecutive hours available when they’re off duty and polls are open are entitled to 3 hours of paid voting leave so long as they provide at least 3 days notice prior to the day of the election.
Wisconsin state law imposes no obligations on employers with regard to paid leave for employees.
Wyoming employers are required to provide employees (who don’t already have 3 consecutive hours when they are not scheduled at work and polls are open) with 1 hour of paid voting leave, though the employer is allowed to pick when the employee exercises the leave and only has to pay out on the hour of wages owed if the employee actually votes.
Stay tuned for Part 2 where we'll take a look at the 25 states with more employee-friendly paid leave laws and what they are requiring from employers.
Understanding what constitutes good benefits is crucial for job satisfaction and well-being. In this guide, we’ll cut to the chase, helping you assess your current benefits package or those provided in a job offer. We cover the why, the what, and the how—from vital health insurance details to work-life perks—equipping you with the knowledge to evaluate or negotiate your benefits effectively. Before you take a new job, understand how your benefits compare.
Employee benefits are essential for job satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, and can affect overall well-being, making it important to evaluate the comprehensive benefits along with salary.
A complete benefits package typically includes five things:
The average employee benefits package is worth $15K if you are single, and $25K if you are covering a family. It represents a large percentage of your compensation and ranges greatly by employer.
To properly value your current benefits package or for a new job, compare it with industry standards, calculate its monetary value, and assess how well it meets your personal needs. Mployer provides online, easy-to-use tools for employees and employers to do just that as well as information to help you better understand how it all works together.
Employee benefits are more than just perks; they’re a critical part of the employment relationship, ensuring job satisfaction and fostering loyalty and retention. Benefits account for over 20% of an employee’s total compensation. That’s a significant chunk! So, when weighing a job offer or thinking about your current job, it’s crucial to consider not just the paycheck but also the following benefits and perks that come with it.
Considering these factors will give you a more comprehensive understanding of your total compensation package.
Before we delve into the evaluation, let’s first understand the key components of a great benefits package. These components include:
But remember, the value of these benefits is dependent on your personal life and career stage, making a big difference in how you perceive them and the pay you receive.
The average dollar value health insurance paid by an employer for an individual is $9,000 if you are single, $15,000 for a family. See below to understand how to value your employer's offering.
There are three main components to evaluate when you are looking at the medical insurance an employer offers:
The average value for an individual of ancillary benefits is $1,500 but can vary significantly. See below to understand how to value your employer's offering.
Ancillary benefits do not cost an employer a lot of money but they can add up, especially to the specific employee and depending on the job role. Do you wear contacts or glasses? Then you, along with almost 75% of Americans, get it. Are you in commercial construction? Short-term disability and life insurance are two items that your company should provide given the nature of the work.
To unpack the ancillary benefits, there are several core ones to evaluate -
The average value for an individual of ancillary benefits is $5,000 as an example but can vary significantly based on your income. See below to understand how to value your employer's offering.
We all need a break from work, right? That’s where paid time off (PTO) policies and paid holidays come in. Generous PTO policies contribute significantly to the mental health of employees, but it also has a hard dollar value. It’s not just about taking a vacation; it’s about achieving a healthy work-life balance, which is a critical aspect of overall job satisfaction.
The average value for retirement benefits are $3,200 as an example but can vary significantly. See below to understand how to value your employer's offering.
Planning for your future is a long-term endeavor, and employer-sponsored retirement plans are a key part of that journey. These can come in different forms. Most employers today offer a defined contribution plan, such as 401(k)s, but pensions still exist, especially with governmental entities. In each of these retirement plans, they involve regular contributions from both employers and employees.
But buyer beware, even if two employers offer a 401(k), the plans can be very different and have a significant impact on your retirement and savings. There are two main components to consider -
Over a five year period, for an $80K salary, the difference between a 1% match and a 6% match is the difference between an employer contribution of $4,500 for 1% and $27,000 for 6%, assuming modest investment returns. The difference is $20K+ for an $80K year employee. That is just five years, imagine if that were compounded over 20-30 years. Plan features can then escalate that even higher and or lower. The higher match, the more money it costs your employer.
Work-life balance and other benefits perks are one of the most important factors to make the full plan work together. They are the interior features of a car and the paint color and while not expensive to an employer (for the most part), they can bring it all together. Some of these perks include:
These perks play a crucial role in supporting employees’ needs and promoting a healthy work-life balance. Similar to the above benefits though, each of these also costs money for your company to cover these benefits.
Now that we’ve identified the key components of a strong benefits package, let’s dive into how to evaluate your current benefits or those being offered for a new job. An effective evaluation involves assessing the entire spectrum of benefits offered, including both employee-paid and employer-paid options.
Use online tools to grade and evaluate your benefits package. Mployer offers a useful calculator that helps you assess your benefits across various categories. If you want to calculate it yourself, below is a high-level example of just a few of the simple (and complex) elements to evaluate:
If you want to calculate it yourself, below is a high-level example of just a few of the simple (and complex) elements Mployer evaluates -
Furthermore, to put your benefits into perspective, Mployer enables you to download an industry-specific cohort report. This report compares your benefits with those offered by other companies in your industry, helping you understand where your package stands relative to your peers. By considering these comprehensive factors, you can make more informed decisions about your employment offers and negotiations.
Were you paying less out of pocket monthly with your last job compared to this job offer? Did you have access to things like dental, vision and a 401k but don't with this offer?
The good news and the bad - an employer is not going to change their benefit plans just for you. Benefit costs are significant for an employer and large percent of your overall pay. But, what they can do is adjust your salary up (or down?) to make it comparable. Armed with all this knowledge, you’re now ready to negotiate better benefits. But where do you start? Let’s explore some tips to help you navigate this often daunting process.
Large employers typically provide a richer package than smaller employers. This is due to two main items -
Employee benefits can range in value from a few thousand dollars to $20,000+ plus depending on the employer based on our peer reviewed studies - that is material. Remember to ask for the employee benefit plan details before accepting a position to get a clear understanding of the benefits offered. Review detailed benefit sheets and seek clarification on any unclear points before engaging in salary and benefit negotiations.
By confirming benefit options prior to accepting a job offer, you’ll ensure that they meet your needs and provide an opportunity to request negotiations.
Understanding, evaluating, and negotiating your employee benefits package is a crucial aspect of your employment journey. From health insurance and retirement plans and other benefits perks, each component of your benefits package plays a vital role in your overall job satisfaction and well-being. Remember to consider industry standards, calculate the monetary value, and assess your personal needs when evaluating your benefits. By utilizing online tools and prioritizing your needs, you can effectively negotiate a benefits package that aligns with your personal and professional goals.
An example of a good benefits package should include health insurance, ancillary benefits, retirement plans, paid time off, and other perks like flexible schedules and childcare assistance. These components can help employees feel supported and valued in the workplace.
To evaluate the quality of health insurance, consider example factors such as premiums, deductibles, copays, coinsurance, network coverage, tax strategy approach and the employer's contribution. These factors play a key role in determining the overall quality of the insurance plan.
The easy way is to use Mployer's free calculator. The complicated way to calculate the monetary value of your benefits package is to sum the annual employer costs for each benefit. You can also divide that total value by your annual salary to express benefits as a percentage of your salary. This will give you a clear understanding of the value of your benefits package.
To negotiate better benefits, it starts in your job offer. you should research, prepare, prioritize your needs, and effectively communicate your value to the employer. Approach the negotiations with confidence and respect for a successful outcome.
Mployer provides a simple calculator to grade and value your benefits. Other sites provide summary information if you want to do research like Glassdoor, PayScale, or Indeed. Mployer is the only platform available to compare benefits packages, which include calculators and rating systems to make an informed decision.
Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from June 2024 that was published in July 2024. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The unemployment rate hit 4.1% as of the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is the highest the unemployment rate has been since November 2021, albeit still well within the range of a healthy job market.
US employers added 206 thousand jobs, which slightly exceeded the 200 thousand that were expected. That said, the latest report also included downward revisions of the job additions reported in April and May amounting to 111 thousand jobs, which is a reduction of almost 25% of new jobs from what was initially reported.
The number of unemployed people climbed a bit to about 6.8 million after hovering around 6.5 million for several months, and the number of long-term unemployed made a significant jump up by about 166 thousand up to 1.5 million last month, as well.
Of the approximate 200 thousand new jobs added, the largest portion were government jobs, which grew by 70 thousand payroll entries - a significant improvement over the approximate 50 thousand government jobs added on average over the last year.
The healthcare industry was also responsible for a significant chunk of the new jobs, netting almost 50 thousand new jobs, which is strong albeit down from the 64 thousand monthly average, followed by the social assistance and construction industries, which each grew by about 25 thousand jobs last month.
Industries that recorded a net reduction in jobs last month include the retail and professional services industries, which dropped about 9 thousand and 17 thousand jobs respectively, while there was no meaningful change in the employment numbers in the energy, manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, information, financial activities, and leisure and hospitality industries.
The average workweek didn’t budge from 34.3 hours per week for the third month in a row, while average hourly pay rose by 10 cents to $35.00 per hour, which is a 0.3% jump over the month and represents a slight slowing in rate increase from the month before. Hourly wages are up 3.9% total over the last year.
Mployer Advisor’s Take
On one hand, there are economic professionals who describe the latest jobs report as the ideal balance, with a job market that’s neither too hot nor too cold, but instead is right in the sweet spot in the middle that the Fed is targeting.
On the other hand, however, there are plenty of experts of equal stature who are starting to call more attention to the potential problems on the horizon.
Beyond the dramatic downsizing of the last couple of months of job gains, another potentially troubling sign is the sharp reduction in temporary worker employment recorded last month, which can often foretell employer expectations that their growth will slow, stop, and or reverse.
Another problematic indicator worth keeping an eye on is the noteworthy increase in the percentage of unemployed people who are now long-term unemployed, which has grown nearly 3 and a half percent in the last year and now accounts for 22% of the total unemployed population in the US.
The Fed will meet again at the end of this month and determine whether or not to keep interest rates where they are or whether to start bringing them down, and this report (including recent revisions) certainly makes a rate cut or two this year more likely and markets seem to believe we remain on track for a quarter point decrease in September.
As previously noted, however, any rates that may come to be are far from guaranteed at this point, even if markets are largely pricing in a pair of quarter point drops before 2025.
From this onlookers perspective at least, the latest report makes an interest rate reduction sometime this fall now more likely than not, but another report like this one and a rate reduction this year will graduate to plain old ‘likely.’
Check out the Mployer Advisor blog here.
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