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Workers’ Compensation Policy
Review The employers’ costs of
workers’ compensation increased in 2005, but the rate of increase slackened
during the year. The data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are analyzed
in “Workers’ Compensation Costs for Employers 1986 to 2005” by John F.
Burton, Jr. In the first quarter of 2005, workers’ compensation costs as a
percent of payroll for all non-federal employees were up 4.1 percent from the
first quarter of 2004. By the fourth
quarter of 2005, costs for these employees were up only 0.9 percent over the
previous 12 months. The moderation
in employers’ costs of workers’ compensation was even more dramatic for
private industry employees: costs were 2.42 percent of payroll in December 2005,
which represented a 1.2 percent decline from the employers’ costs of 2.45
percent of payroll in December 2004. “Workers’ Compensation Benefits: Frequencies and Amounts in 2001” by Florence Blum and John F. Burton, Jr. provides the latest information on the frequency, average benefits per claim, and total benefits per 100,000 workers for four types of cash benefits, for all cash benefits, and for medical benefits. The data are for 47 jurisdictions for 2001. The differences among jurisdictions are impressive: for example, permanent partial disability benefits per 100,000 workers were more than 150 percent of the national average in Alaska, California, New York, and the Longshore and Harbor Workers program and were less than 50 percent of the national average in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Indiana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. The Workers’ Compensation Policy Review is published six times a year.
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