Workers’ Compensation: Benefits, Coverage and Costs

Overview

Workers’ compensation benefits as a share of payroll are reaching historically low levels, even as employers shoulder more costs, according to this report from the National Academy of Social Insurance, a non-profit, non-partisan organization. This report presents new data on workers’ compensation benefits, coverage and costs in 2014. Despite growth in employment and an uptick in employees covered by workers’ compensation, benefits per $100 of payroll fell to the lowest level since 1980. Benefits as a percent of payroll declined in 46 states between 2010 and 2014, continuing a national trend in lower benefits relative to payroll that began in the 1990s. Costs to employers, on the other hand, grew at a rate nearly five times faster than benefits, according to the report.

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