Private-sector retirement plan access held at 72% in March 2026, but only 52% of all private workers participated, meaning around one in four workers offered a plan did not join it, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.
The data comes from the BLS's annual Employee Benefits in the United States summary. It covers access and participation rates across retirement, healthcare, disability, and paid leave for civilian workers. Breakdowns run by sector, work status, industry, and geography.
Within the private sector, defined contribution plans dominate. Seventy percent of private workers had access to one, with a 49 percent participation rate. Defined benefit plans, which guarantee a fixed monthly payout at retirement, reached just 14 percent of private workers. Only 9 percent enrolled. The 72 percent private-sector access rate was unchanged from March 2025, though participation dipped one point to 52 percent.
The structure flips in government. Eighty-six percent of state and local workers had access to a defined benefit plan, with 75 percent participating. Defined contribution access stood at 39 percent, with a 20 percent take-up rate. Private-sector employees without a defined benefit floor depend almost entirely on defined contribution performance and their own contribution levels for retirement security.
The gap between full-time and part-time workers is widest in healthcare. The BLS reported that 87 percent of full-time private industry workers had access to medical care benefits. That compared with 23 percent of part-time workers. The take-up rate was 67 percent for full-time workers and 47 percent for part-time workers who had access.
Retail, hospitality, and healthcare services collectively account for a large share of the US part-time workforce, and the 23 percent access figure gives advisers a concrete baseline against which a client's current offering can be measured.
Short-term disability access also varies by geography. The BLS found that 66 percent of civilian workers in the Northeast had access to short-term disability plans, against 36 percent in the South. Among private-sector workers specifically, the overall access rate was 44 percent - a separate figure that covers a narrower population than the regional breakdowns.
Several Northeastern states, including New Jersey and New York, mandate short-term disability coverage, which means the Northeast figure reflects legal floors as much as employer choice. In the South, where no such mandates exist, the 36 percent rate is driven entirely by voluntary plan adoption.
Paid sick leave access varies sharply by industry. The BLS found 58 percent access in leisure and hospitality and 98 percent in both the information sector and the finance and insurance industry. Student loan repayment assistance showed a similar pattern: 15 percent access for the highest wage quartile against 3 percent in the lowest.
The same BLS survey also found 49 percent of private industry workers had access to paid family and medical leave, a benefit that similarly concentrates at the higher end of the wage scale.
The BLS data shows that access is not simply a function of employer generosity. Sector, work status, industry, and income level each produce distinct access profiles, and the gaps between them run in the same direction across nearly every benefit category the survey tracks.
