Trapped in America's Safety Net

In 2009, just two-thirds of workers aged eighteen to sixty-four had employer-provided health insurance; just half such workers had an employer that sponsored a retirement plan. 51 Furthermore, access to employer-provided benefits is highly skewed by income. Such benefits are most widely available to the middle class and especially the affluent in higher-paid jobs. If you sort US firms by the average wage they pay, most firms in the top quartile offer retirement benefits and paid sick leave, compared with only one-third of the firms in the bottom quartile.