After sampling nearly 17,000 businesses and local governments nationwide, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the results of a new survey which included unprecedented questions on the availability of domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples. The survey revealed that nearly one-third of all U.S. workers had access to health benefits for their domestic partner.
According to the New York Times, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the first federal government agency to collect data on domestic partner benefits. Bureau officials reportedly chose to include questions regarding domestic partner benefits in this years’ National Compensation Survey in response to the recent buzz surrounding the topic.
The survey results showed that while seventy-one percent of private industry employees had access to health care plans, only 1 in 4 workers had health care coverage that extended to their domestic partner. Altogether, only thirty-three percent of employers offered health benefits to same-sex couples – a significantly low number that highlights the disparity between health care coverage for same-sex and opposite-sex partners.
In addition, the survey found that high wage earners and union workers were considerably more likely to have access to benefits for a domestic partner than low-wage earners, and that employees in the Pacific region of the U.S. had greater access to equal health care than those in the Mountain region, Central U.S. and New England.
