[Excerpt] Employee compensation packages commonly include both wages and benefits. For decades, employee benefits have been used as part of the total compensation package to attract and retain highly qualified workers. Just as workers in various occupations receive different levels of pay, they also receive access to different types and combinations of employee benefits. This article uses March 2012 National Compensation Survey (NCS) data to examine private industry workers’ access to medical benefits, retirement benefits, and combinations of the two benefits, by major occupation group, wage category, part-time and full-time status, union and nonunion status, and establishment size. The study finds notable differences in the patterns of access to medical and retirement benefits—separately, and in combination—among the various worker groups
