With so many global firms and mom-and-pop shops thriving in Westchester, it’s no wonder we sport some of the best work perks around (looking at you, Jägermeister White Plains, with your communal office tap). It’s no surprise then, to find that of the 62 counties in New York State, Westchester placed number five in terms of the best places for employee benefits.
The 2019 list, released by financial advisement firm SmartAsset, breaks down and scored every U.S. county on four key criteria from 2017 census data: unemployment rate, cost of living, rate of health insurance utilization, and rate of retirement savings utilization. Weighing each of these factors and indexing the best scores as 100% allowed the team of analysts to precisely determine which counties were the best in terms of providing benefits employees actually utilize. So how did Westchester fare?
Westchester’s unemployment hovered at 6.5% in 2017 — the highest of any county in the top 10. Of residents who had access to health coverage, 44.59% utilized it, while 56.28% utilized an available retirement contribution. Cost of living, which was calculated as a percentage of average county income, was as high as 60.43%. Combined, these figures placed Westchester fifth on the list of all New York counties, with a final Employment Benefits Index of 55.71.
The only counties to best us were, in ascending order, Putnam, Suffolk, Nassau, and Saratoga Counties.
