A FLOOD OF STUDIES

A flood of studies on workers’ comp have just been released (see links below).

I’m speaking on a blogger panel tomorrow at the CWC & Risk Conference in Monarch Bay, and I’m sure that these studies will be fodder for a robust discussion.

The U.S. Department of Labor has released a study titled “Does the Workers’ Compensation System Fulfill Its Obligations to Injured Workers?”. The report questions whether, nationally speaking, workers’ compensation systems in the states are working well. This was widely reported today on NPR.

Along with this U.S. DOL report there is a new analysis by the National Academy of Social Insurance in Washington, D.C., providing a rich data set on comparative state systems and trends.

In terms of a California focused report, there is the RAND wage loss report that has now been released by CHSWC for public comment. It’s titled “Benefits and Earnings Losses for Permanently Disabled Workers in California”.

And the California Workers’ Compensation Institute has released “regional score card” focusing on injury trends in Riverside County and Orange County.

In future blog posts I’ll be looking at the findings and conclusions of some of these studies.

Here are links for those wonky enough to dive in themselves:

The U.S. Department of Labor report:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3121896-Labor-Department-Workers-Comp-Report-2016.html

The NPR report on the Department of Labor report is here:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/05/496596865/labor-report-urges-study-of-a-federal-role-in-state-workers-comp-laws

The National Academy of Social Insurance:

https://www.nasi.org/research/2016/workers-compensation-benefits-coverage-costs

The RAND report on earnings losses:

http://www.dir.ca.gov/chswc/allreports.html

Stay tuned.

Julius Young