What impact will dropping severance pay and supplemental unemployment benefit (SUB) plans have on the ECI compensation measures?
Severance pay and supplemental unemployment benefit (SUB) plans have been dropped as a component of compensation from the ECI beginning with the March 2006 index. The combined cost of these two benefits accounts for less than one-tenth of one percent of compensation. Dropping these benefits will have virtually no impact on the index. • Are the new estimates for the “excluding incentive paid occupations” series be different from the estimates for “excluding sales occupations”? Yes. For some workers, variability in compensation is related to the way workers are paid. The ECI has attempted to remove quarter-to-quarter volatility to allow users to understand underlying trends by publishing estimates for “excluding sales occupations.” It became evident that “excluding sales occupations” did not include an important group of workers outside of sales whose pay is volatile, primarily managers in the finance sector who are paid commissions. In addition, sales occupations included many workers w
