Abstract

Employer-provided benefits such as pensions and health insurance are commonplace in the U.S. economy, thanks to generous tax subsidies. These benefits are often not 100% portable from job to job and thus interfere with labor mobility. Yet changes in the American economy are likely to make mobility more important in the future. It is important that benefits be made portable and that all sources of social insurance-not just employers-be made eligible for the same tax subsidies. There should be no public policy presumption that social insurance is best provided in the workplace.