The collective U.S. workforce is aided and impacted by a multitude of state and federal insurance and benefits programs. These programs are designed to protect workers when they are injured on the job or can no longer work for health or age related reasons, as well as protect the economy at large by keeping the workforce productive and viable. Three of the largest programs of this type are unemployment insurance, workers compensation insurance, and social security.

All states administer an unemployment insurance system to provide workers a safety net in the event they lose their jobs. This system is run by the individual states, and each state has its own eligibility guidelines. Generally, an employee is only eligible to collect unemployment insurance if he or she is becomes unemployed through no fault of their own. Workers who quit their jobs cannot collect benefits unless they were driven to quit by a hostile or unfair work environment. In addition, the employee must have worked at the job for at least a "base period" of time before being eligible to collect.

When a worker makes a claim for unemployment benefits, the government agency administering the program contacts the employer to investigate the circumstances of the discharge and the salary of the worker. The amount of unemployment benefits is based on the persons wages, usually calculated by averaging the claimant's weekly wages for the last calendar year. The employer has a right to contest the claim and have the matter determined by an independent arbitrator. This typically happens when there is a dispute over whether the worker was fired or quit, or fired with or without cause.

If the claim is unchallenged (or approved after being challenged), an individual may collect unemployment for up to 26 weeks. During that time, they are required to make a good faith effort to find a replacement job that is compatible with their education, experience, and skills. If the unemployment agency discovers that an individual is not making a good faith effort to find work, or that she turned down a suitable job offer, her benefits will be terminated.

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour for most workers, however some states have set their minimum wage laws at higher amounts. The federal limits make some exceptions to this rule, such as for workers who regularly earn tips, or are under 18. Employees who earn tips are entitled to have the employer make up the difference if their wages and tips do not add up the the minimum wage for the amount of time worked.

In addition to the minimum wage, federal law requires that many types of workers be paid time and a half for every hour over 40 they work in a week. This requirement cannot be waived, and must be paid in wages, not added vacation time or other benefits. However, many types of workers are exempt from this requirement. Generally, any employee who earns less than $23,000 per year is entitled to overtime wage rates. On the other hand, salaried employees who make more than that amount, or certain types of executives and creative professionals are not entitled to overtime wages.

The extent of an employee's right to employment privacy is currently a fairly unsettled area of the law. Technically there is no federal law guaranteeing a right to workplace privacy, and for private sector jobs, it can generally be assumed that an employer is free to monitor employees at will. Internal employment privacy policies or union contracts may provide exceptions to this rule, but those rights are generally not guaranteed by statute. This, along with widely-available technologies that are capable of effectively monitoring all internet, phone, and email use, has given employers the ability to review nearly all the electronic communications that happen in the work place.

However, this does not mean that employees have no workplace privacy rights in the real world. Federal case law distinguishes between "monitoring" and "searching", which means that while employers can monitor freely, they cannot search areas where employees have a "reasonable expectation of privacy". Courts have had some difficulty creating a hard and fast rule about what types of searches are reasonable in the workplace environment, but it can generally be said that if the purpose of the search is to protect a legitimate business interest, and the search does not arbitrarily single out some employees unfairly, then it is probably legal.

In almost every state, an employee is considered to be "at will" unless there is a specific agreement to the contrary. This means that the employment relationship exists only as long as both parties want it to, and an employee can quit or be fired at any time, for any reason or no reason at all. If there is a dispute as to this status, it is up to the employee to prove in court that she was not an at-will employee, based on the written or oral statements of the employer. This can happen if an employer gives an at-will employee a reasonable impression that their position is guaranteed for a period of time, or that they can only be fired for good cause.