Workers' Compensation: Analysis for Its Second Century

Wage Loss Monitoring for Injured Workers in California's Workers' Compensation System: 2013 Injury Year Findings (First Interim Report)

“…Earnings and employment losses due to injury are not only large, but they also tend to be highly persistent, if not permanent. These findings are not peculiar to California: studies on the economic consequences of permanently disabling workplace injury from other settings also show large and persistent reductions in earnings and employment to be the expected result of permanently disabling workplace injury (Savych and Hunt, 2017;Galizzi and Boden, 2003;Hunt and Dillender, 2017). Perhaps more concerning than the size of earnings losses is the fact that these losses have persisted for more recent, post-recession injury cohorts.…”

How Can Workers' Compensation Systems Promote Occupational Safety and Health? Stakeholder Views on Policy and Research Priorities

“…One research approach might combine modeling frameworks from the public finance literature on optimal social insurance with more rigorous evidence on factors affecting return to work and the accuracy of existing disability rating approaches to provide a theoretical foundation for redesigning disability rating and benefit schedules. For example, Hunt and Dillender (2017), interpreting findings from Savych and Hunt (2017), note that Michigan's wage loss approach to disability compensation (in conjunction with other unique system features) leads to much better benefit adequacy than has been found in states that use permanent disability ratings to assign benefits. The argument against a wage loss approach is that it discourages return to work by creating a high implicit tax rate on labor earnings, whereas rating-based systems decouple workers' disability benefits from their work outcomes (Reville et al, 2005).…”

Earnings Losses and Benefit Adequacy in California's Workers' Compensation System: Estimates for 2005–2017 Injury Dates

“…Although there are differing opinions on what constitutes whether a particular benefit is adequate, there is some consensus that benefits replacing two-thirds of after-tax earnings losses represents a reasonable benchmark to measure benefit adequacy (e.g., Hunt and Dillender, 2017;Dworsky et al, 2016). Five-year replacement rates come close to two-thirds of after-tax earnings losses for some subgroups, including claims without settlements, claims without CT injuries, and claims with upper and lower extremity injuries.…”