Ah yes, Tim Worstall. Every time I read one of his articles I end up thinking, "He touched on this important related aspect of his topic but then failed to actually detail how it impacts his claim, both for and against." I this article, he mentions "total compensation" includes benefits and suggests that those benefits somehow make up the missing wages. From a pure numbers perspective, the increase in benefits is an increase in total compensation. But it doesn't call out that most of those "missing wages" have been absorbed into handle rising healthcare costs. The people who are receiving these "increased benefits" haven't received anything other than the same healthcare but now they pay more for it.