The National Compensation Survey: the New Bls Integrated Compensation Program

For many decades, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has conducted studies of wages by occupation and industry. The best known of the early studies stemmed from a Senate resolution of March 3, 1891, which instructed BLS to investigate the effects of tariff legislation on wages and prices. Systematic collection of wage data by occupation and industry continued after the turn of the century, with changes in coverage dictated mainly by government needs. Survey activity shifted in the early 1940’s defense period to heavy industries essential to war production. Implementation of wage stabilization policy during the war required a large-scale program of occupational wage studies by industry and locality. The emphasis on data by locality continued after 1945 within the framework of industry studies generally designed to yield national and regional estimates. Area wage surveys, initiated in the late 1940’s, were designed to meet the growing demand for pay data related to office clerical and manual jobs that are common to a wide variety of manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries within a metropolitan area. In 1960, the program was converted to a statistically selected group of areas which data could be estimated to represent all metropolitan areas of the 48 contiguous United States. Also in 1960, the Bureau began conducting an annual nationwide survey of professional, administrative, technical and clerical jobs in a broad spectrum of private industries. In 1990, Congress passed legislation that provided for local variations in Federal white-collar pay scales. BLS combined its area wage program with the national white collar pay survey into the Occupational Compensation Survey Program (OCSP) to meet this administrative need along with providing compensation analysts with an enhanced local/national products. In 1976, the Bureau began to publish the Employment Cost Index (ECI) which measures the rate of change in employee compensation, which includes wages, salaries, and employer’s cost for employee benefits. Several elements distinguish the ECI from other surveys of employee compensation. It is comprehensive in that it includes costs incurred by employers for employee benefits in addition to wages and salaries; and covers all establishments and occupations in both the private nonfarm and public sectors. It measures the change in cost of employing a fixed set of labor inputs, so it is not affected over time by changes in the occupational composition of the labor force. The survey is timely in that statistics are published quarterly. The ECI also enables users to compare rates of change in occupational group, industrial, geographic, union coverage, and public/private sub series. In 1980 the Bureau began annual full-scale comprehensive surveys on the incidence and characteristics of employee benefits for full and part time employees: the Employee Benefits Survey (EBS). Since the early 1980’s discussion has ensued within the Bureau to integrate the occupational wage surveys, industrial wage surveys, ECI and EBS into a single integrated compensation program. One purpose of the goals of integration is to find ways to eliminate the duplication that exists through the current use of three separate surveys to study compensation. With the new joint occupation selection system, each establishment would only be contacted one time (in each sample cycle), rather than possibly being visited for more than one survey. Therefore, the burden on respondents will be reduced significantly, especially for those large establishments that are likely to be selected in multiple samples with many of the same data elements captured in multiple surveys. While the new sample size would be larger than that for an individual survey, it would be smaller than the sum of the samples for the current surveys. Therefore, fewer establishments of all sizes would be visited, so the overall burden on respondents would go down. In October 1996, BLS began the process of integrating the above program into a single program: The National Compensation Survey (NCS). NCS allows for the continuation of data collected by OCSP, ECI and EBS. A review of some of the key concepts underlying the programs follows.