average benefit percentage
Employers pay 7.65 percent of the first $117,000 of an employeeâs earnings for Social Security and Medicare, and 1.45 percent on earnings above that amount, for Medicare only. Other, smaller statutory benefits paid by the employer are workersâ compensation and unemployment tax. According to BLS data for December 2013, these legally required benefits account for 7.8 percent of the average civilian workerâs total compensation cost.