In this book, which was the outgrowth of a conference sponsored by the Upjohn Institute in Washington,D.C., in June 2007, leading policy analysts frame the major challenges facing U.S. labor policy: Improving the skills of American workers so that they can better compete in a global economy; Addressing the crisis in our system of employer-sponsored health insurance; Minimizing the effects of dislocation due to immigration and trade; Removing barriers to employment for older workers; Improving the quality of jobs for low-wage workers without harming the competitiveness of American companies; Addressing the serious employment barriers of the disadvantaged. Each chapter in this volume tackles one of these policy challenges, identifying the key problems,evaluating the effectiveness of current policy approaches, and offering innovative, forward-thinking, but pragmatic alternative policies. Collectively, the chapters in this volume offer a clear road map for future labor market policy.

Because most workers rely primarily on their employers to provide both wages and benefits as part of a total compensation package, the trends in the costs and availability of employer-sponsored compensation have a significant bearing on workers' well-being. Through tax preferences and payroll taxes, federal government policy also has a bearing on employees' access to benefits and on the costs carried by employers. The federal government provides significant tax subsidies for both health insurance plans and qualified retirement plans. In addition, workers and employers are required to pay taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, programs intended to help provide for workers' economic security and peace of mind in retirement. In this report, GAO examined federal data on private employers' costs for active workers and sought perspectives from 17 experts to identify (1) recent trends in employers' total compensation costs; (2) composition of the trends; (3) whether employees' costs, participation, or access to benefits changed; and (4) possible

Employer's Tax Guide (Circular E) - The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), enacted on March 18, 2020, and amended by the COVID-related Tax Relief Act of 2020, provides certain employers with tax credits that reimburse them for the cost of providing paid sick and family leave wages to their employees for leave related to COVID‐19. Qualified sick and family leave wages and the related credits for qualified sick and family leave wages are only reported on employment tax returns with respect to wages paid for leave taken in quarters beginning after March 31, 2020, and before April 1, 2021, unless extended by future legislation. If you paid qualified sick and family leave wages in 2021 for 2020 leave, you will claim the credit on your 2021 employment tax return. Under the FFCRA, certain employers with fewer than 500 employees provide paid sick and fam-ily leave to employees unable to work or telework. The FFCRA required such employers to provide leave to such employees after March 31, 2020, and before January 1, 2021. Publication 15 (For use in 2021)