Employee benefits and public policy

The first expression of public policy regarding privately sponsored employee benefit programs occurred in 1921 when Congress authorized tax deductions and tax deferrals for employee stock bonus and profit sharing plans. Today, following numerous additional enactments, there is an annual tax expenditure for employee benefits of some $100 billion. Universal availability of privately sponsored employee benefits is clearly a goal of public policy. That goal has not been attained. It is the thesis of this article that the goal will not be attained by means of tax incentives alone; that an inequity exists between taxpayers who enjoy coverage and those who do not; that there are serious problems with our benefit system even for those who enjoy coverage; and that mandated benefits must be considered as a means of fulfilling public policy.