Separate Realities: The Dream and the Iceberg - Scarecrow Press

60 Chapter 2
plans fell from 84 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 1997. For workers in small
firms, such coverage declined from 20 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 1996. 70
In 1995 the proportion of workers covered by defined-contribution pension
plans exceeded the proportion covered by defined-benefit plans. Since then,
the proportion of workers covered by defined-benefit plans has continued to
decline, while the proportion covered by defined-contribution plans has continued
to increase. 71 In 2005 about 21 percent of all private-sector workers had
access to, and were participating in, defined-benefit pension plans; by contrast,
53 percent of private-sector workers had access to defined-contribution
pension plans, but only 42 percent were participating in such plans. 72 Given
the important differences between the two types of pension plans, it is clear
that “the shift from traditional defined-benefit plans to defined-contribution
plans represents an erosion of pension quality.” 73
Regarding health care, the share of private-sector wage and salary workers
covered by employer-provided health-care plans, where employers pay
amounts ranging from partial to full premiums, declined from 69 percent of
private-sector workers in 1979 to 55.9 percent in 2004. This trend affects workers
in all gender and racial categories. From 1979 to 2004, health-care coverage
fell for male workers from 75.4 to 58.7 percent and from 59.4 to 52.5 percent
for female workers. During the same period, coverage for whites fell from
70.3 to 59.8 percent; black health-care coverage dropped from 63.1 to 54.1
percent, and coverage for Hispanics fell from 60.4 to 39.7 percent. 74
In parallel with declining health-care coverage were increased premium
costs for workers, and increased percentages of workers were required by employers
to help fund their health-care plans. The increase in health-care premiums
paid by workers for family-coverage medical care rose (in 2006 dollars)
from an average of $155 per month in 1996 to $172 per month in 1999 to
$226 in 2006. 75 The proportion of full-time private-sector workers required to
make contributions for single medical coverage increased from 26 percent in
1980 to 69 percent in 1997 to 76 percent in 2004; for family medical coverage,
the percentage of workers required to make contributions increased from
46 percent in 1980 to 80 percent in 1997 to 89 percent in 2004. 76
Growing Contingent Work
Workers’ wages and benefits fell in part due to the growing use by employers
of more non-full-time workers to reduce labor costs. The alternatives to
full-time employment include a number of work arrangements variously referred
to by researchers and journalists as “contingent” or “nonstandard”
work. 77 Despite the lack of comprehensive trend data on contingent work, different
forms of information suggest that employers are employing more workers
outside of full-time work arrangements. 78 Today, “over a quarter of all
workers [are] now working at jobs that are contingent or nonstandard.” 79 This