Employee benefits constitute a major vehicle for the provision of income security for Americans. Since the 1940s, wage supplements, particularly in the form of pensions and health insurance, have expanded to provide protections that are the province of public programs in most other Western countries. Building upon the precedents of the welfare capitalism of the early 1900s, the growth of employee benefits has been actively stimulated by federal tax and regulatory policies. The emergence of employee benefits as a major source of income security and health insurance has reduced the aggregate need for public programs, but it has left those in lower-paying, less stable jobs—disproportionately women and minorities—both unprotected and with fewer political allies to press for improved protections. The implementation of the employee benefit programs has also created financial interests in the existing structure that would resist changes that would diminish their role.
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References
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1. Richard M. Titmuss, “The Social Division of Labor,” in his Essays on the Welfare State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969).
2.
2. Roy Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 54-57.
3.
3. Stuart D. Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, 1880-1940 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1976).
4.
4. The range of company-sponsored services are suggestive of the contemporary interest in corporate management styles that have been associated with the larger Japanese companies, incorporating services such as recreation and housing into the employee-company relationship.
5.
5. For example, see Carroll R. Daugherty, Melvin G. DeChazeau, and Samuel S. Stratton, The Economics of the Iron and Steel Industry (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), pp. 908 ff.
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6. Stanley M. Buder, Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880-1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).
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7. Ibid., pp. 60-74.
8.
8. Ann Shola Orloff and Theda Skocpol, “Why Not Equal Protection? Explaining the Politics of Public Social Welfare in Britain and the United States, 1880s-1920s” (Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Detroit, MI, 2 Sept. 1983).
9.
9. Lubove, Struggle for Social Security, p. 83.
10.
10. National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195 (1933).
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11. For a discussion of this period, see Walter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960).
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12. Leo Troy, Trade Union Membership, 1897-1962, Occasional Paper 92 (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1965), tab. 1, p. 1.
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13. George Rubin, “Major Collective Bargaining Developments—A Quarter-Century Review,”Current Wage Developments, p. 43 (Feb. 1974).
14.
14. Inland Steel Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 336 U.S. 960 (1949).
16. The impact of tax policies on pensions is summarized in Alicia H. Munnell, The Economics of Private Pensions (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 1982), chap. 3.
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17. Tax Expenditures: Budget Control Options and Five- Year Budget Projections for Fiscal Years 1983-1987 (Washington, DC: Congress of the U.S., Congressional Budget Office, 1982), tab. A-1.
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18. U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981, 102nd ed. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), tab. 521, pp. 320-321.
19.
19. Daniel J. Beller, “Coverage Patterns of Full-Time Employees under Private Retirement Plans,”Social Security Bulletin, 44:4 (July 1981). Subsequent public policies, initiated in 1984, have lowered the minimum age at which a person is eligible for a company pension plan as well as altering requirements to extend greater pension rights to the spouse of the covered worker.
21. Daniel N. Price, “Private Industry Health Insurance Plans: Type of Administration and Insurer in 1974,”Social Security Bulletin, 40:3 (Mar. 1977).
22.
22. Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Employee Benefits 1980 (Washington, DC: Chamber of Commerce of the United States, 1981), tab. 21.
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23. Lawrence S. Root, “Employee Benefits and an Aging Workforce” (Project report, Travelers Companies and the Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, May 1984).
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24. William M. Mercer, Inc., “Employer Attitudes: Implications of an Aging Work Force” (Chicago: William M. Mercer, Nov. 1981), p. 29.
25.
25. For a discussion of permissible adjustments, see “Employee Benefit Plans; Amendment to Interpretative Bulletin,”Federal Register, 25 May 1979, pp. 30648-30662.
26.
26. Tax treatment of flexible benefits remains in flux. The movement toward allowing greater choice is balanced by a concern for lost federal revenues particularly in light of benefit arrangements that can serve as large-scale tax shelters for upper-income personnel.
27.
27. I observed this in field studies with steel-workers. See Root, Fringe Benefits: Social Insurance in the Steel Industry (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1982). It was also confirmed in subsequent interviews with human resource personnel. For example, a vice-president for personnel of a large business-information service described the loss of health insurance as a principal reason why several employees were unwilling to take advantage of early-retirement provisions of the pension plan.
28.
28. Peter F. Drucker, The Unseen Revolution: How Pension Fund Socialism Came to America (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).
29.
29. The question of the control of investments, however, has become a matter of public debate. For example, pressures for more socially responsible investment policies for pension funds have addressed questions of the racial and environmental policies. But these attempts to influence investment policy remain relatively rare and do not yet suggest a growth in participant involvement in pension-fund decision making.
30.
30. Kenneth T. Rosen, “The Role of Pension Funds in Housing Finance,”Housing Finance Review, 1(2):149 (Apr. 1982).
31.
31. Ibid., tab. 2, p. 154.
32.
Virtually all of the group health insurance—96 percent—is tied to the work place. See Amy K. Taylor, “Employment-Related Health Insurance,” in Health—United States, 1980, U.S., Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), p. 87.
33.
33. U.S., Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Benefits in Medium and Large Firms, 1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), tab. 1, p. 11.
34.
34. Ann Arbor News, 25 Jan. 1983.
35.
35. Taylor, “Employment-Related Health Insurance,” tab. A, p. 88.
36.
36. U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, General Report on Industrial Organization: 1977 Enterprise Statistics (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981), tab. 3.
37.
37. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract: 1981, tab. 678, p. 404.
38.
38. Chamber of Commerce, Employee Benefits 1980, tab. 22, p. 31.
39.
39. U.S., Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 1978 Employment and Training Report of the President (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1978), tabs. A-15 and A-16, pp. 205-208.
40.
40. Lawrence S. Root and John E. Tropman, “Income Sources of the Elderly,”Social Security Review, 58(3):398 (Sept. 1984).
41.
41. This National Health Plan barely saw the light of day, arising shortly before the economic situation began to dictate spending restraint as the only politically feasible course. It is outlined in U.S., Office of the President, Special Analysis: Budget of the United States Government; Fiscal Year 1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1980), p. 423.
42.
42. Wall Street Journal, 21 Sept. 1982.
43.
43. Ann Arbor News, 31 Oct. 1982.
44.
44. Employment and Training Administration, 1978 Employment and Training Report, tab. 2, p. 87.
